US Woman Dies After Her Own Dogs Tried 'Eating Her Alive,' Neighbours Say

A South Carolina woman died last week after a playful wrestling session with her dogs outside her mobile home went horribly wrong, police said.

Nancy Cherryl Burgess-Dismuke, 52, often played with her dogs on the ground, but her neighbours in Greenville say they came running to check on her Thursday when they heard what sounded like a new level of aggression. They found two dogs, described as boxer mixes, biting Burgess-Dismuke’s arms and dragging her.

“It went from looking like they were really playing to them really eating her alive,” Amber Greer, who had called 911, told the Greenville News .

Denzel Whiteside and his roommate used a blunt ax and another makeshift weapon to fight the dogs off their distressed neighbour.

“When they finally got the dogs off of her, and finally got them to go, she threw her body over the fence,” Greer said. “She didn’t jump; she threw her body like you never seen before.”

Despite her neighbours’ help, Burgess-Dismuke died of her injuries after being transported to a local hospital, police said. She had been alert when the paramedics arrived on the scene, but later went into cardiac arrest at the hospital, the county coroner’s office told The Washington Post .

“She was already so far gone,” Whiteside told the Greenville News. “One arm was already bit completely off, the other arm was barely hanging on by a piece of meat. ... It was the longest 10 minutes of my life.”

Autopsy results, including Burgess-Dismuke’s cause of death, are still pending. The two dogs were scheduled to be euthanised on Friday.