“I could feel my face was torn” – Hearn describes dog attack

VICKSBURG, Miss. (Vicksburg Daily News)–The graphic pictures of the aftermath of the dog attack against Ann Hearn show a devastating and vicious assault. She received various cuts and bruises which caused so much blood to flow from her head she couldn’t see. “I thought he took my eye out” said Hearn to the Vicksburg Daily News.

Hearn was in her yard cleaning up and cutting the grass. The sound of the lawnmower triggered the dog, according to Hearn. It managed to get out of its yard and into Hearn’s and attacked the lawnmower. When Hearn let go of the mower, shutting it off, the dog then attacked her. “I could feel my face was torn. Then it had my head and was shaking it,” recalled Hearn.

A neighbor across the street ran over to assist after witnessing the attack. “He saw the dog on top of me. He thought the dog had me around the throat,” stated Hearn. “The guy came over with a stick and I think he must have told his wife to call an ambulance. He was beating the dog with the stick and it didn’t phase the dog at all. So he cranked my lawnmower up, and the dog attacked the lawnmower. [It] gave me a chance to get in the house. When I got in the house, I was bleeding so bad I couldn’t see the phone,” explained a wounded Hearn.

Ann Hearn immediately after the dog attack. (Photo provided by Ann Hearn.)

After the neighbor got away from the dog, Hearn says she “crawled to the front door, banging on the door, the dog [came] around and looked at me right in the door, just staring at me.”

When first responders arrived, they could not get inside Hearn’s house because the dog was still out. “The ambulance people couldn’t get out, nobody could get out to come to me in my house to help me.” Hearn then said Animal Control got there quickly and was able to put the dog up right away.

In an exclusive video with Hearn, she describes the dog attack and the aftermath.

After the earlier story on this attack, a neighbor of Hearn’s posted that same dog, a short stocky blue pit, had attacked him, but he was only slightly injured and able to get away. Cody Hearn and his wife, Jessica, filed a report with the police department.

Cody Hearn after the dog bit him. (Photo by Jessica Hearn.)

Ann Hearn, in her video, indicated the neighbor who tried to help was also bitten by the dog but the Vicksburg Daily News has not been able to verify that at the time of this report.

Kacie Lindsey with the animal shelter was unable to comment on this case, but the Vicksburg Daily News has learned that when the incident occurred on July 8, no one was aware this dog was the same one allegedly involved in the attack on Cody Hearn a year earlier. Jessica Hearn noted that the Animal Shelter was instrumental in helping her to file her report.