A student’s thumb was bitten off during a nightmare attack by a pit bull as she desperately tried to protect her two vulnerable service dogs.
Leah Satterlee, an American exchange student, was walking her dogs in Beechwood Park in Dundee, Scotland, on January 31, when the vicious pit bull burst in and attacked her. Leah, 31, tried to intervene and protect her Siberian Husky Hamlet and Great Dane mix Atticus, but the dog then turned on her as well. She was left “rolling around on the floor” trying to prize the dog’s grip after it “burst into the park” earlier this year, and even threw punches before it clasped her thumb in an iron grip.
Speaking to the Daily Record, Leah said she didn’t realise her thumb had been bitten off until she started noticing “blood everywhere” after looking down during the fight. She said: “The dog burst into the park and started attacking my dogs. I was rolling around on the ground trying to get it off Hamlet and Atticus for what seemed like forever.”
When she shrugged off the attack after realising the dog had taken a section of her thumb, she found it on the ground and stored it in a poo bag before rushing to hospital. Leah continued: “There was suddenly blood everywhere. I looked down at my hand and realised the dog had bitten off my thumb.
“Then I found it lying on the ground and put it in a poo bag to take with me to hospital.” Despite her quick thinking, doctors at Ninewells hospital were unable to attach the digit.
Leah said medics confirmed the dog’s grip had partially crushed her thumb, making it impossible to fully reconnect. But they were able to reconstruct her thumb during her four-day hospital stay up to her nailbed.
She explained that surgeons shaved off bone and dead nerve tissue before pulling skin over the remaining exposed area to close off the wound. She added: “I was in hospital for four days. But they managed to save my nailbed, so that’s something.” But Leah wasn’t the only one left with wounds, as her dogs sustained damage in the attack as well.
She said: “Hamlet had a puncture wound just 2cm from his eye and Atticus’ nose swelled to three times its size.” Leah said she has also been left with long-lasting psychological damage, including depression, lowered self-esteem, a loss of self-confidence, and fear of dogs. Her two well-trained service animals have also been left nervous.
With emergency vet bills and medication costs now draining her life savings, Leah has set up a GoFundMe fundraiser in a bid to cover the costs. She said: “I know money is tight for everyone right now, so I absolutely detest having to result to this but I am at the end of my rope and this is my last resort.”
Police are yet to track down the owner of the pitbull which attacked Leah and her two dogs, despite carrying out “extensive enquiries” a spokesperson for Police Scotland said. They said: “At 8.10pm on Friday, 31 January, 2025 we received a report of a woman injured by a dog at a park near Calderwood Close, Lochee.
“A 37-year-old woman was taken to Ninewells Hospital for treatment and later released. Officers attended and extensive enquiries were carried out, however the dog has not been traced.”
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