By Joshua Allen

Staff Reporter

A woman was transported to an area hospital after suffering a dog attack last week in Paden.

Okfuskee County Sheriff Jim Rasmussen confirmed the woman was transported to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Tulsa where she was treated for multiple dog-inflicted wounds.

The victim’s name is being withheld, according to authorities.

Okfuskee County Deputy Bill Sides, the officer who responded to the call, said the incident occurred on Maple Street, near its intersection with 7th.

The victim, a resident of the homes in north Paden, was walking home from the dollar store on Maple when the attack took place.

She claimed two dogs, a brownish-red pit bull and a smaller, brownish-red dog, were responsible for the attack, Sides said.

“The smaller dog was about 20 to 25 pounds,” the deputy said, adding, “She told me she looked up and saw the dogs up the way, but didn’t think much of it … then, before she knew it, they were attacking her.”

Sheriff Rasmussen told the News Leader it was a “pretty vicious attack”, with Deputy Sides adding the victim received just over 70 stitches for the wounds.

Luckily, a woman stopped and broke up the attack, probably saving the victim’s life.

“It was bad,” Sides said. “If that lady that stopped to help her hadn’t stopped, the dogs would have killed her.”

Sides said the dogs are still being sought. No information on whether they were stray dogs or owned by someone has come up.

The two dogs need to be found quickly — within the next day or two, Sides said — at which point they will be quarantined to establish whether or not they are rabid or have received rabies shots.

That being said, the victim will likely have to be treated with a rabies shot, unless it can be established quickly enough that the dogs were not rabid at the time of the attack.

Deputy Sides said anyone with information on the whereabouts of the dogs should contact the sheriff’s office (918.623.1122).

He described them both as primarily brownish-red — one being a pit bull breed, the other an unknown small-dog breed.