LEAVITTSBURG — Emergency responders confessed to doubting that Althea Sanzenbacher could survive the dog attack. The animal tore the 90-year-old woman’s stomach, punctured her trachea, and bit her face and leg.

Sanzenbacher’s own dog, Sadie, was bitten under the left shoulder and chest.

Today, both Sanzenbacher and Sadie are back in their Eagle Creek Road home, stepping lively, neither showing ill effects from the nearly fatal Sept. 5 mauling.

Sanzenbacher’s story was selected from a number of reader submissions on what they are most thankful for, a longtime Tribune Chronicle tradition.

“God provided prayers from friends, strangers and the owner of the dog that bit me,” Sanzenbacher said. “Everybody was praying for me, so that helps.”

“She is an impressive woman,” said Pastor John Jaros of First Community Church in Leavittsburg, where Sanzenbacher is a longtime member (as was her late husband, Dale).

“We are really blessed here at this church with a group of people who genuinely care for each other,” Jaros said. “And that’s the way it should be — people looking out for each other, a real community. I think that is something that Althea has instilled in a lot of people. She’s the one who provided meals for other people. She’s very giving, generous, involved.

“I love how she doesn’t hold a grudge. That was the second time it bit her. This time, it almost killed her. I was down there at the hospital with her right after it happened. I really didn’t think she was going to make it. She is a walking miracle.”

In her home last week, Sanzenbacher, dressed in a white-collared, gray sweatsuit, perched on the edge of a tan ottoman, sifted through a stack of get-well cards. Sadie, an 8-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever nearly big enough for Sanzenbacher to saddle and ride, rested at her feet, after soaking up all the head scratches she could get from a visitor.

“We had been out to the mailbox,” Sanzenbacher said about the day of the attack. “(The neighbor’s dog will) bark at us. Well, I bark back. I guess he didn’t like that. He must have gotten loose. He got me good.”

She said her neighbor corralled the dog, which since has been put down. Sanzenbacher said her neighbor has continued to check in, offering prayers, apologies and assistance.

A rescue squad rushed Sanzenbacher to Trumbull Regional Medical Center in Warren. She was transferred to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

“From there, I had the helicopter ride that I don’t even remember. I didn’t know that until I read that in the newspaper,” she said.

She landed at University Hospitals in Cleveland, where she said she received good care. And cards.

“I got a stack of letters, a stack of cards from people, and some visits,” she said. She keeps them at home next to a stack of birthday cards; Sanzenbacher turned 91 on Oct. 30.

One of the get-well cards came from a friend in Grove City.

“I don’t know how he found out. He said he heard it on the morning news. He said when he’d been in the hospital, one of the biggest helps was letters from people who loved him. So he wanted to make sure I received cards,” she said.

When she recovered enough, Sanzenbacher was released to Community Skilled Nursing Home in Warren.

Community Skilled pampered her, she said. “They take you to the shower. They have a beauty parlor there. I just got my hair done. They brought food to my room. I guess I could have gone to the dining room had I asked.”

It was at the nursing home that her nephew surprised her with a visit from a Pennsylvania cousin she hardly gets to see.

She returned home somewhere around the first of October, with help from nurses Shelby Brenkert, Greg Baugher and John Ruby from Patriot Home Care in Girard, who changed the dressing on her stomach wound.

“It was a traumatic wound,” Sean Davis, Patriot administrator, said. “She was bitten, the skin was ripped, it was pretty serious.

“We saw her for probably about a month and we got her back to full health again. She was a really good patient. She’s a nice lady. Very active. She’s older and still goes dancing and is doing things.

“She is fully healed up. We’re thankful that she’s back to full health and she can enjoy the holiday season with her family and Sadie.”

Sanzenbacher said at times she still feels something like a lump in her trachea when she swallows. Other than that, she’s good.

“(On Nov. 2) I was released from having the nurse come in every other day. I saw the doctor on (Nov. 13). I don’t have to go back for three months,” she said.

While Sanzenbacher was at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Sadie was at Town and Country Veterinary Hospital getting patched up.

“They didn’t tell me that right away or I’d have been really upset,” Sanzenbacher said.

The big dog dislodged her first cone and ripped out her own stitches. She had to be stitched a second time.

Friends from church took care of Sadie until Sanzenbacher was back home and resumed care of the chocolate Lab herself.

“God provided everything for me — good prayers from friends, relatives and neighbors,” Sanzenbacher said. “My church brought me food every other day. I was thankful for all of them.”

bcole@tribtoday.com