A POLICE woman attacked by a dog while attending a ‘routine’ call said she can still see the dog’s teeth inches from her face.

PC Ruth Syers was bitten on the hand during the incident in Burnley and had an operation to remove a tooth that had become lodged inside her hand.

Twenty-seven-year-old PC Syers, who owns two dogs herself, said she could have been ‘mauled to death’ had she not been with three other colleagues at the time.

They had been called to an incident in Rylands Street at around 9.30pm on Monday.

She said: “The seconds before the dog jumped at me is like freeze frames. I can still see it so vividly.

“We were stood on the street waiting for someone to come out of a house we had been called to when the dog appeared in the doorway.

“The next thing I knew the dog had come for me, it jumped up at my face and I could see its teeth right in front of my face.

“Instinctively I put my hands up to protect myself and it bit me on the hand. The next minute or so I can’t really remember anything because of the pain and the shock, then I was in the middle of the street screaming.

“Two of my colleagues were still trying to control the dog, they were tasering it and using their batons but it wasn’t calming down, it was extremely aggressive.

“Another colleague came over and said ‘oh my god, you’re bleeding’. At this point I was hyperventilating and almost having a panic attack, my biggest worry was that I couldn’t feel my fingers.

“We went straight to Burnley General Hospital and they did an X-ray which showed that the dog’s tooth was lodged in the back of my hand between the bones and the finger, and I had to go the plastic surgery unit at Preston.”

PC Syers, who lives in Burnley and has been an officer in the town for four years, said she was a ‘dog lover’ herself and owned two scottie dogs, but described the ordeal as ‘horrific’.

She said: “I will never forget the moment it came for me. It was absolutely horrific. I have dogs myself but this was terrifying. Had I been on my own without my colleauges I think I could have been mauled to death."

“I’m incredibly thankful that they were there and managed to get control of the dog in the end.”

PC Syers spent two nights in Royal Preston Hospital undergoing treatment.

She said: “Hopefully there is no permanent damage, but I need to have some physiotherapy. I think I’ve been extremely lucky that there has been no damage to the tendons, it could have been a lot worse."

  • Sandra Wardle, 58, of Burnley Road, Brierfield had been charged with being drunk and disorderly, failure to comply with a control of dog order and allowing a dog out of control to cause injury.

She is due to appear before Burnley Magistrates Court on May 16.