By DON STINE
A 22-year-old Neptune City man is being called a hero after he was able to grab and subdue an enraged pit bull March 21 that has already bitten four people, including the man’s aunt.
Carl Ganchier was inside his Brighton Arms apartment around 7 a.m. when he heard his 42-year-old aunt, Odette Durogene, screaming in the parking lot. He immediately ran outside and was able to grab ahold of the dog and restrain it until police arrived.
Mayor Robert Brown said that Ganchier really is a hero.
“It was truly a heroic thing he did,” he said.
The pit bull belonged to Terrance Simmons, 41, who was at the apartment complex staying overnight with his sister and her 10-year-old son. In the morning the dog attacked the boy and bit him on his arm. The dog then also attacked Simmons and his sister as they tried to free the boy. The pit bull then ran out of the apartment into the parking lot where it attacked Durogene. Ganchier heard the commotion and ran outside to help. Durogene had just dropped her one-year-old daughter off to other family members at Ganchier’s apartment.
“The silver lining in this event is that the one-year-old infant was not in her mother’s arms when the dog attacked. Ganchier is a true hero,” Public Safety Director Ed Kirschenbaum said.
Neptune City Police Officers Alexander Parisi and Sgt. Hoover Cano arrived to help Ganchier restrain and capture the pit bull., which was still violent. The dog was eventually placed in the back of the police squad car.
The four people attacked by the pit bull were taken to the Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune where they were treated for bite wounds and later released. Ganchier, who is studying to be a nurse, also had some minor injuries.
The local SPCA euthanized the dog and it will now be tested to see if it had any diseases. Simmons, who lives in Neptune, had gotten the pit bull three days earlier from a friend who gave it up after the dog attacked the friend’s wife.
