Cops: Woman seriously hurt in dog attack

Two pit bulls set upon a 62-year-old woman near a senior center in North Merrick Thursday morning, mauling the victim and sparking panic in the vicinity as police -- who shot one dog dead -- searched the area for the other.

The attack came a day after a similar attack in the same area, on William Street and Richard Avenue on Wednesday night, when a bicyclist used his vehicle to fend off two dogs. Emergency Service Unit officers shot at the dogs with dart guns, but they escaped. It was unclear if the same pair of dogs launched both attacks.

The unidentified woman received "serious, deep lacerations to her left arm and both legs" and was taken to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, police said in a statement. Det. Lt. Kevin Smith, a department spokesman, said her husband was at her bedside.

Smith said police got a 911 call at 11 a.m. from the victim, who was screaming and said she was at the senior center on Meadowbrook Road. Officers responded to find the woman at the southwest corner of the parking lot being attacked.

"As they [police] approached, these dogs were still biting at her and tearing into her," Smith said at the scene.

He said they were still looking for the second dog, who was tan-colored and white in its belly area, and advised residents to stay inside.

The victim "had just finished walking" when the dogs approached her. The building houses a senior center and the administrative offices of Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District. There was no school Thursday because of Rosh Hashanah.

In reconstructing the attack, Smith said that the woman usually went for a walk in the morning. The dogs were tentative when they first approached her, but grew ferocious once they began their attack, he said.

"They begin to nip and tug, eventually going into a full attack," Smith said. "They begin to bite at her and rip at her.

"She has lacerations to her head and face. On both legs, she has deep lacerations, as well as both arms, particularly in one arm between the elbow and wrist, it was severely mangled."

Amanda Hertzka, 25, said she grew up playing with the victim's son.

She said the family was quiet and that the victim was a doctor in her native country, either India or Pakistan, but has studied to be a real estate agent in the United States.

"Things like dogs attacking people just don't happen around here," Hertzka said. "The family is very nice but they stay to themselves."

Susie Hertzka, Amanda's mother, said that up until about a month ago she walked her dog in that area daily: "My husband would yell at me for going there by myself. But I never saw any stray dogs and I never felt unsafe. Nothing ever happens around here."