Watch: Terrified worker bitten in vicious pitbull attack
A road construction worker yesterday told how he fought off a pitbull dog as it viciously attacked him.
Lungisile Thongo, 60, is an employee of Mamlambo Construction, a company busy with road maintenance on Gonubie Main Road.
He was taking a break in shade next to a property called Pitbull Trailers when the dog called Sparky came charging at him.
The dog came at him with such force that he fell to the ground. The attack occurred at 9am in front of seven other construction workers.
“I did not see it coming. I just heard screams from my colleagues, who were shouting ‘here comes a dog, here comes a dog’.
By the time I turned around to look, it had bitten me on the hip and locked its teeth,” Thongo said.
One of the dog’s canine teeth punctured his flesh and the other his cellphone, which was in his right pocket.
“Had I not had my cellphone in the pocket, I would have been in big trouble,” he said.
While on the ground and struggling to get up, Thongo started punching the dog with his fist. It let go of his hip and went for his neck.
“I fought it off and my colleagues came running causing the dog to stop and take a few steps back.”
The father of three said he had a phobia of dogs. “I have been scared of dogs all my life.”
The dog belongs to Gonubie pitbull breeder Ronnie Courtney, who was not apologetic yesterday.
Courtney has four pitbulls in his yard and has sold more than nine of them. “Let us be fair on the dog and not only the human. I am a white man living on a farm and you know about farm attacks in this country.
“I need these dogs to protect me. I will stop breeding them the day police starting doing their jobs,” he said.
Courtney claimed he had on numerous occasions caught workers throwing stones at his dog.
“I came home the other day and found one of my dogs with a big hole on the head.”
Courtney said he was not sure how the dog managed to unchain itself and break out of the yard.
Mamlambo contract manager Arthur Page-Wood said the dog came from bushes on the side of the property.
“We are still busy investigating the whole incident. Our employee was taken to Life St Dominic’s Hospital. We are going to bring him back here so that we can lay a criminal charge at the SAPS in Gonubie,” Page-Wood said.
He said Thongo had sustained a “couple of puncture marks in his hip. He was very lucky he wasn’t alone.” — zwangam@dispatch.co.za