"It came around the corner," Steedley said. "I saw it coming ... and I knew it was going to zone in on my dog Timber."

"It lunged at me. It got my arm" Steedley said. "It pulled me off the steps and down. I was hollering and screaming, 'Help! Help!'"

Steedley, who lives alone, estimates it was about three to five minutes before his neighbors heard the screaming and came to his assistance.

"It took them a couple of minutes to get the dog off," Steedley said. "They were prying its mouth open. He has a big head and big jaw. It took a while before they got it off of me. It seemed like forever. It was just ripping me."

Steedley says in order to stop the blood, a makeshift tourniquet was made from a towel from inside his house and an old pair of jeans on his porch.

"My house was sprayed," he said. "Blood was pumping out. My house was saturated with blood."

While he was going in and out of consciousness, Steedley's sister, Edith O'Neal, said the neighbors called EMS. Steedley was transported to the former Bamberg County hospital and airlifted to Columbia's Baptist Richland Parkridge.

Steedley remembers looking at his left arm at the hospital and was struck by the brutal sight.