Robin Brown

The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal

NEWARK, Del. — On the short, quiet street of tidy two-story homes, the only hint of the near-deadly dog attack was a pair of rescuers' gloves, dropped on the blacktop by the front curb before the ambulance rushed away.

Neighbors had seen the family out a few hours earlier doing yard work that last Saturday of September — a bright, summer-like day — before everyone went their different ways.

The mother and father — Delaware natives Todd and Maria Ruckle, who work as a real estate team — went to a wedding.

The teenage boy, nearly 17-year-old Jack Carpenter, Maria's son from a previous marriage, went to work at his construction job. His roommate in the family's converted-garage apartment was out with his girlfriend.

And the two girls, half-sisters Emily Ruckle, 8, and Megan Carpenter, 15, walked to the newly remodeled McDonald's, ate and took photos of themselves, then walked home.

Within minutes, the younger girl literally was being torn apart by a pit bull.

Emily had major surgery in the hours after the attack to reattach the arm the dog had torn away. She faces several more surgeries and extensive physical therapy in the weeks and months ahead.

Emily spent the first few days in a medically induced coma. Awakening briefly at one point, disoriented, she asked her parents if she was in heaven.

She has no memory of the attack.

"Thank God for Megan," her stepfather said. "Without her, Emily would be dead now."

Parents' nightmare

It was about 2 p.m. and wedding guests of Carlos and Chelsea Hernandez were seated, with all eyes toward the bride-to-be, about to walk down the aisle with her bridesmaids.

Ruckle's phone started ringing. And ringing. And ringing.

"I was at a wedding, so I ignored it," he said.

"Then I got a text from my handyman who was going to stain the deck. He said something was going on. There were ambulances and police at our house and they told him it was a crime scene."

The next time the phone rang, about 2 seconds later, Ruckle answered.

"They said, 'You have to go to A.I. (duPont Hospital for Children). Your daughter's been attacked by a dog,'" he said, choking up. "I asked, 'Is she alive?' and they said, 'As of right now she is.' "

He jumped up, told his wife and they bolted for the door.

Ruckle stopped the bride as she turned the corner for the walk to her groom. "I told her, 'We're really sorry but we've got to go. Our daughter's been attacked by a dog.' "

They ran to their car, and reached Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Rockland in about 10 minutes, Ruckle said.

Their hearts sank when the doctors talked to them.

"They said they couldn't help her, that a helicopter was coming and something about Pennsylvania," he said, admitting he didn't hear much after the part about "they couldn't help her."

By the time they arrived Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, Emily was in a medically induced coma.

The attack



The pit bull named Frank wasn't the Ruckles' dog; he belonged to Maria Ruckle's ex-husband. Todd Ruckle didn't want Frank in his house. But the dog had been staying with the family in Jack's apartment, a separate dwelling from the house.

After Emily and Megan, who is Jack's sister, got back from McDonald's they apparently heard the pit bull making noise and thought it had to go out to the bathroom.

They went to let him out.

"He went full-fledged into attack mode," Todd said. "He's never done that before."

"He went after her, just went after her. He smashed her head on the floor, then he tore off her arm. It was hanging by threads ... just skin and some tendons.

"He went after her like she was meat."

Megan tried desperately to get the dog off her sister, at one point wrapping her arm around Emily's neck so the dog couldn't tear into it, he said.

She called 911 and applied direct pressure to Emily's arm wound to keep her from bleeding to death, Ruckle said.

Rescuers initially went to the house instead of the apartment's separate entrance, he said. When they finally found the scene, the dog wouldn't let them near the girls.

So Megan carried her sister up the stairs, he said.

The pit bull remained aggressive, according to city police, and an officer shot and killed him.

Megan rode with Emily in the ambulance to the hospital.

"She stayed with her the whole way," Todd said. "When they [emergency medical technicians] said Megan was a hero, they were right."

"She is very bright and was very brave," he said, adding that the situation must have been terrifying, but "her training kicked in."

The 10th grader at Charter School of Wilmington is a member of the Civil Air Patrol, first-aid certified and she wants to become an Air Force doctor.

And at 15, she already has saved a life.

The surgery

When the Ruckles got to Children's Hospital, three teams of surgeons – orthopedic, vascular and plastic – were ready in the operating room. Dr. Ines Lin led the team.

She introduced herself as a dog-bite specialist and said Emily's damage was "very extensive," so they should expect four or five hours of surgery.

Surgery began, but quickly there were complications.

Nerves were gone. Damage was worse than expected. They took a 12-inch vein from Emily's inner thigh to transplant to her arm. It didn't take; it kept breaking. More hours. Nerve bundles lost. A blood clot brought yet another sense of urgency. Hours, excruciating hours, slowly passed.

"It took 12½ hours and Dr. Lin is eight months pregnant and she only took one pee break," Ruckle said. "She's my savior. All the doctors, the hospital, have been awesome, but she's the savior."

The savior was also a truth-teller.

"She said this was absolutely the worst injury she's ever seen from a dog," Ruckle said, adding Emily would need many more operations and therapy.

Lin also warned them that there is only a slim chance that Emily will regain use of her arm.

Then more-immediate concerns and complications took over.

Taking no chances, doctors gave Emily rabies shots because the dog's owner refused to turn over veterinary records, authorities said. Days later the dog's remains tested negative.

Doctors tried taking Emily off the heavy, clunking respirator, but she couldn't breathe. Yet her father was relieved that she was now on a machine that was quieter and seemed gentler.

Then the little girl's temperature mysteriously took a life-threatening nose-dive, and she had to be wrapped in a warming device known as "a bear hug." She was given antibiotics and her temperature climbed back to a normal range.

But it wasn't until Monday that Emily's eyes finally fluttered open.

"She asked, 'Am I dead?' " her father recalled. "She thought she was in heaven."

Emily's parents assured her that she was alive and safe, that they love her. She didn't seem to remember being attacked, or that she was in the hospital. She kept fading in and out. She was lost. She kept saying, "I'm sorry," "I'm scared" and talking about feeling trapped, wanting to go home.

Ruckle described the week after the mauling as being "beyond brutal." But Emily is beginning to interact more with family, she's received a few visitors and beginning therapy.

One therapist calls her the "Warrior Princess."

The pit bull

The 100-pound pit bull had belonged to Maria McGuinness Ruckle's ex-husband John Carpenter, who could not be reached for comment.

A home-improvement contractor, Carpenter lived near Elsmere with his son, Jack, and Jack's roommate, Ruckle said.

At the end of July, Carpenter moved and the Ruckles immediately took in Jack and his roommate.

The house, which Todd bought in 1996 as a first-time homeowner, has a garage converted into an in-law suite with a kitchenette and a separate entrance.

Over the years, Ruckle supplemented his income by having renters in the apartment. It was vacant in July, making the decision to offer it to the boys a no-brainer, Ruckle said.

But the pit bull created tension between the Ruckles, married since 2005.

"I didn't want the dog," Todd Ruckle said. "I don't like pit bulls."

He said he has read many stories about maulings by pit bulls, including the fatal attack in May on 4-year-old Kasii Haith at the home of a family friend west of Felton.

Nationwide, 31 people were reported killed in dog attacks in 2013, according the National Canine Research Council.

The council cites a study published in December 2013 by The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association that, like earlier studies, "found no evidence that one kind of dog is more likely to injure a human being than another kind of dog."

Ruckle said he has read comments people post about pit bulls, what good dogs they are and how the breed should not be blamed for bad owners.

Still, Ruckle, who calls himself "a German shepherd guy," said such testimonials don't change his mind about pit bulls.

"I don't trust them," he said. And that's why he didn't want Frank on his property.

"I said, 'We need to find the dog another home. We need to take it to a shelter.' "

Ruckle said he very reluctantly gave in on accepting Frank, knowing his stepson also bonded with the dog.

Ruckle said he set strict rules: Frank lived in the in-law suite only. He didn't go into the family house. Jack was to take care of him. And Frank went out to do his business in a separate area with a fence, with heavy wood slats on both sides and a "beware of dog" sign.

The support

Todd Ruckle's cellphone died the night Emily was attacked, but he used his wife's phone to post short, daily updates on Facebook.

Longtime family friend Jerry Clifton — a former Newark City Council member whose District 2 seat Todd Ruckle won in April — has fielded calls from people concerned about the family, and Newark Mayor Polly Sierer is covering his constituents' concerns, Ruckle said, adding that "Jerry's been a godsend."

While there are hundreds of calls he couldn't return, Ruckle said, his family appreciates the well wishes flooding their social media pages.

Their friends in real estate have pitched in to help with the kids, pets and house, among other things. A big package of cards and pictures arrived from Newark Charter School, where Emily is a third-grader, as have other gifts, including cheesesteaks.

They had a special visit from a police officer, a former tenant of their apartment, who would have been on duty when Emily was mauled, except that he was sidelined by an injury.

He gave Emily his lucky bracelet, one with special meaning for a cop.

It says, "NOT TODAY."

Like the rest of the outpouring of support, including growing fundraising plans, that was overwhelming for her parents.

Everyone in the family still has major challenges ahead, Todd Ruckle said, but he and his wife can't find the words for all their gratitude — for Megan, for the doctors, for Emily living, for their friends, for everyone's love, for all the kindness.

His voice trails, then he sighs.

"Everyone asks if there's anything we need," he says, "and I tell them, 'Just prayers.' "