— An 87-year-old man in Harnett County said he feared for his life when three dogs mauled him Tuesday.

The bandages, bruises and bites are all because a dog from two doors down came to the back door of Ernest D’Andria’s home on Cameron Hill Road.

“I come out here and shooed him, ‘come on, go home,’” D’Andria said.

The pit bull did start to go home, with D’Andria following to goad him along, but two more dogs- which authorities said were shepherd mixes- emerged from around the fence and attacked.

“I know I was fighting, kicking. I don’t remember,” D’Andria said. “I was more going on instinct than anything else.”

“They ganged up and jumped on him, knocked him down, and I said ‘oh my God, I’ve got to do something,’” D’Andria’s wife, Joyce D’Andria said. “He was on the ground in an almost fetal position. He had one dog on his head.”

Joyce D’Andria grabbed a billy club that the couple keeps in the bedroom in case of intruders and began waiving it at the dogs.

“They stood up, looked, and took off,” she said.

Ernest D’Andria was sent to the hospital for rabies shots following the attack. He said the dog’s owners did not contact him after the incident.

“If I see him, I’ll punch him in the mouth,” he said of the neighbor who owns the dogs.

Aside from a single wooden fence, the yard at the home where the dogs live is unenclosed.

The three dogs were in the custody of Harnett County Animal Services on Sunday and the D’Andrias said their neighbors have called Animal Services on the residence before because of wandering dogs.

“They take them dogs away, they get new dogs,” Ernest D’Andria said. “Why should I have to live like this? I should be in my good years right now.”

A spokesman with Harnett County Animal Services said Monday that the dogs were hunder a mandatory 10-day quarantine because they were not up to date on their rabies vaccinations. The owner will be able to reclaim the dogs when the quarantine period ends, he said.

It is unclear if the owner of the dogs will be charged in connection with the attack, but the dogs have been deemed "potentially dangerous" by animal control officers.