Mom unable to breastfeed baby after pit bull mauling

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Cape Town - A young mother is unable to breastfeed her two-month-old baby after two pit bulls nearly ripped off her breasts in a vicious attack this week. Mother of four Samantha Steyn, 27, of Heideveld, was bitten on her arm, leg and breast, making it impossible for her baby to feed. She says on Tuesday at about 8.30am, while walking from a relative’s house, two pit bulls ran through the open gate of their owners’ yard in Winterberg Street and attacked her. She was saved after the dogs’ inexplicably stopped attacking her and ran off. The traumatised woman says she is lucky to be alive after losing a lot of blood.

She was rushed to Mitchells Plain District Hospital by the dogs’ owners.

Samantha says she can barely touch her wounded breast and also has lacerations on her arm and leg.

The unemployed mom says she is unable to buy her baby formula milk.

Samantha says she is just grateful she didn’t have her tiny son, Allie, with her when she was attacked.

“I was walking home when the dogs ran out of the gates which were left open,” she explains.

Samantha Steyn was bitten on her arm, leg and chest by two pit bulls. Picture: Jack Lestrade/African News Agency (ANA)





“I told the dogs, hey gaan (go away), when they started barking at me. They were light brown pit bulls and the bigger one jumped at my chest. He didn’t manage to push me down but bit me on my breast. I was screaming like mad. The second one bit my arm and one of them my leg.”

Samantha says the terrible ordeal lasted for about 10 minutes before the dogs “miraculously” stopped mauling her and ran away.

“A man came walking over the field and before he could assist me, they ran off. I don’t know why or how,” she says.

Samantha says the dogs’ owners came out and took her to hospital.

They’ve also provided her with a tin of milk for Allie as her breast was injured.

Samantha says she wants to open a case but doesn’t have money to travel to the hospital for a J88 medical report.

When Daily Voice visited the dogs’ owner in Winterberg Street, the gate was standing open.

The owner then admitted her gate was open when the dogs attacked Samantha.

“The gate was open and we do not know why,” she says.

She also questioned why the Daily Voice wanted to write a story about the incident, before adamantly saying: “I won’t let them put my dog down.”

Since 2016, there has been close to 30 pit bull attacks on the Cape Flats.

The youngest victim was three-month-old Fantasia Heneker, who in 2017 was dragged off a bed in Ravensmead by a pit bull while her mother was hanging washing.

In February 2018, former policeman Henry Kleinhans, 50, of Kraaifontein was killed after his pit bull attacked him and his wife Ruth.

Daily Voice