A young woman’s life may have been saved by a group of people who intervened when she was attacked by a dog.

Dannie Canter was driving home from work Wednesday when he heard screams in Stonewall Estates subdivision of Spotsylvania County, Virginia.

“I see the lady on the ground with the dog mauling her, and my first instinct was just to put the truck in park and jump out and run,” Canter said.

A woman was being attacked in her front yard by a Presa Canario, one of the family’s six dogs. Her newborn baby was inside the house.

“It looked like she’d been attacked by sharks, the bites were so brutal and so bad,” Canter said.

Neighbors and men from a landscaping truck went after the dog with tools, but it didn’t let go until Canter jumped on it.

“I yelled the word ‘out’ just like I would with my dogs, and when I did, he let go and immediately he turned to me, and that’s when I grabbed his collar and kind of choked him and slammed him to the ground and just jumped on his back and tried to hold him down,” Canter said.

The victim was able to flee into the house.

Canter also helped a deputy who was also bitten before two dogs were shot. They later died.

Neighbors said it’s not the first time there has been trouble with the dogs.

“We’ve lived in fear from these dogs in our backyard for a while now,” Russell Garcia said.

He said the Presa Canarios have gone under or over his fence three times to attack his dog. He said he was bitten trying to break up an attack in January.

“Animal control or the county should have taken action in either removing the dogs or making sure that they’re muzzled or something along those lines,” he said.

Canter said the memory of those screams has been tough, but it helped when the victim sent him a message thanking him and the other for being her heroes.

“It’s a good feeling to be called a hero, but I don’t feel like I’m a hero,” Canter said. “I just feel like I did the right thing. I did what I was supposed to to save somebody’s life.”