Dog bite victim frustrated by inaction

A schoolteacher from Iowa says he was severely bitten six weeks ago in a remote area of Mount Spokane after his dog encountered two other dogs owned by a deputy prosecuting attorney, who walked away without summoning medical help.

“I was bleeding, I was in shock and I thought I might die,” 57-year-old Dennis L. Ferguson said Thursday, describing the attack he experienced in a wooded area about three miles from the Snowblaze condominiums, where he spent the summer.

Beyond his wounds, which will require future surgeries, Ferguson and his wife, Patti, say they feel “stunned and bewildered” by treatment they received from sheriff’s deputies, animal control officers and a prosecutor who wouldn’t call 911.

“It bewilders and angers me,” Ferguson said. “I’d like to think my life is worth more than this kind of treatment.”

Ferguson said he has never been interviewed by anyone in an official capacity, and deputies refused to take his report claiming that the deputy prosecutor refused to summon medical assistance – a crime in Washington.

The deputy prosecutor, Dan Catt, said he saw Ferguson being bitten by his own dog after it encountered Catt’s two dogs, which were unleashed in an area where that is permitted.

“I’m saying that my dogs did not bite him or his dogs,” Catt said when reached for comment.

But medical experts later determined at least one of the severe bites came from the smaller of Catt’s two dogs, Ferguson said. Others came from his own 120-pound bull mastiff, which Ferguson believes was trying to protect him.

The county prosecutor said he didn’t summon help because he “didn’t realize he was in trouble.”

“Obviously, in hindsight, I misjudged it and, frankly, I feel terrible about it,” said Catt, whose office prosecutes animal control violations.

Ferguson shakes slightly as he shows his healing wounds and relives the nightmare he says lasted more than two hours on Sunday, June 25.

He was alone, walking his mastiff, “Ike,” on a leash about 7 a.m. when they came upon two other unleashed dogs, a Newfoundland and a Cairn terrier, owned by Catt, who also lives in the condominium complex.

After a brief encounter between the terrier and his dog, Ferguson said, he proceeded past Catt and his dogs. But seconds later as he hiked down the trail, the terrier returned and a “fighting frenzy” ensued between it and his leashed mastiff, Ferguson said.

“That’s not what took place,” Catt said in explaining his version of events.

Regardless, the 57-year-old schoolteacher suffered 10 bite wounds on his left arm, a dozen more on the right arm and other wounds to his shoulders, ribcage and thigh.

He was knocked to the ground in a pool of blood. After the other dogs ran off, his own mastiff began licking his wounds, “and I think he probably saved my life,” Ferguson said.

The Fergusons remain “stunned and disappointed” by Catt’s behavior. “This man left my husband out there, bleeding, and he could have died,” Patti Ferguson said.

Two hours after the mauling, the high school English teacher staggered back to his condominium, met partway by his concerned wife who had gone looking for him. “I thought he had been chewed up by a bear when I saw him,” she said.

She grabbed towels, wrapped his wounds and started driving down Mount Spokane where she met a state park ranger.

The ranger drove the couple’s minivan at “break-neck speed” to a parking lot on Highway 2 where sheriff’s deputies and an ambulance arrived. The van’s tires had to be replaced because of the trip, according to the couple. Later, en route to the hospital, a paramedic said it was possible Ferguson might lose an arm because of the severe wounds, his wife recalled.

The deputies asked the victim’s wife questions, but apparently did not write reports after turning the matter over to animal control officers.

They were given written permission by Patti Ferguson to go to the couple’s condominium and impound the mastiff. After being quarantined for 10 days, it was euthanized with the couple’s permission.

Ferguson was in the hospital three days as his wounds were sutured, stapled and bandaged together. Scars remain on both arms, his shoulders and thighs – including at least one bite wound that Ferguson claims was inflicted by the Cairn terrier.

Immediately after being released, he was re-hospitalized for eight more days when the attack caused blood clots to form on both lungs, causing breathing difficulties.

Ferguson plans to leave Spokane today for his home in Cedar Rapids.

“I wonder if any of this has to do with the fact that Mr. Catt also works for the county?” Ferguson asked during an interview Thursday. “I wonder about that, but I have no proof of it.”

Ferguson has hired an attorney, but hasn’t initiated any legal action.

“What you’re saying is an absolute surprise to me,” Nancy Hill, director of the Spokane County Regional Animal Control Service, said when asked about allegations of favoritism. She acknowledged, however, that she never interviewed the bite victim because he was medically incapacitated.

“I did not want there to be any hint of favoritism because there wasn’t,” Hill said.

Hill said she took a statement three days after the incident from Ferguson’s wife, who did not witness the attack. “I asked them to provide me with any additional information, and that never occurred.”

The animal control chief interviewed Catt, but said she didn’t extend any favoritism because he’s a fellow county employee. SCRAPS previously has issued citations to sheriff’s deputies and state troopers who have violated animal control laws, she said. “We don’t play favorites.”

With a dog bite a day to investigate, Hill said she lacks the resources to do follow-up interviews. It was up to Ferguson to contact her if he had issues.

“I don’t think we were derelict in our duties at all,” the SCRAPS director said.