A man died screaming on a Hamilton street Wednesday night in the middle of what neighbours described as a horrific dog attack — but following an autopsy, the coroner says that’s not what killed him.

“As of right now, I have no evidence that the dog is in any way involved in the death process,” regional coroner Dr. Jack Stanborough said Thursday afternoon.

Multiple witnesses say they watched the dog repeatedly attack and bite the man as he cried for help. The victim — whose identity has not been released — was in his 30s, Stanborough said.

It’s not unusual for coroners to arrive at a preliminary cause of death following an autopsy, but these are rarely made public. Stanborough would only rule out the dog’s involvement and any “traumatic injuries” as causes of death at this stage, saying they are still waiting on additional test results, including toxicology.

“It may have appeared to somebody ... to be a dog attack. But I can tell you from our examination of the body we have no evidence to suggest the dog is involved in the death process,” he said.

While the cause of death may still be a mystery, there was no question in the minds of the many neighbours who came rushing out of their Burton Street homes upon hearing the man’s first — and soon panicked — screams.

Probably the first man to react was Bruce Rayner, 69, who heard loud yelling at about 11:15 p.m. and stepped out on his porch to investigate. About 25 metres west of him, Rayner saw two men, one of them tussling with a medium-sized dog and swearing while the other watched. A bicycle lay discarded in the street.

“I saw somebody trying to put a chain and collar on the dog ... he was yelling ‘Come here you stupid effing dog!’ ”

As he watched the dog jumped at the man and bit him on the arm.

“He raised his hands, like in fear, and moved away across the street and the dog ran after him.”

The dog leapt at him and the man went down screaming “Get this thing off me! He’s biting me!” Rayner said. He raced back into his house to grab a baseball bat.

Another witness, Jessica Wilson, watching from her living room window facing onto the chaotic scene, described the dog latching fiercely onto the man’s arm while he swung it back and forth, yelling for help as he tried to dislodge it.

Wilson said the man went down, punching and hitting the dog with his free hand and screaming for help the whole time as the pair rolled and twisted on the cracked and dirty asphalt.

Tania Malcew, who lives about 75 metres from the scene on a small side street, Clark Avenue, said the man’s screams were chilling. “Something was very wrong, he was in dire need of help,” she said.

Help was coming, in the form of the 69-year-old Rayner and his baseball bat.

“It was pandemonium,” a shaken Rayner said 15 hours later, sitting on the front steps of his porch.

As he approached he could see the man’s companion standing frozen on the sidewalk holding the dog’s leather collar and the length of heavy chain that was his leash. The man lay prone in the street, the dog’s face buried in the juncture between his neck and shoulder, worrying it, “like he had a rag doll” another neighbour described it.

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“He (the man) wasn’t responding, I had to do something.”

Rayner stepped up and swung his bat hard at the dog’s hind quarters. It shifted the animal’s back half, but the dog remained seemingly chewing or gripping the man at his neck and shoulder.

The retired welder gave the dog another wallop on the hip, from the other direction, knocked the dog off balance and he staggered back. Rayner moved in, trying to put himself and his bat between the dog and the man.

The dog — a young male mastiff, Rayner thinks — stood his ground snarling and trying to advance. Rayner swung a third time, only this time aiming at the dog’s head and that mouthful of teeth. Again and again he struck it in the head, there was blood on his bat, blood on the dog’s snarling face and blood on the street.

The dog wouldn’t back away.

“I was starting to feel a little shaky, and worried I might go down, so tried to give the bat to the man (the companion) but he refused saying “It’s not my effing dog!”

There were more and more people on the street, including another man with a bat, who stood back and watched warily as Rayner faced off with the snarling, snapping dog in front of him and the prone, ominously quiet victim behind him.

“It seemed like a very long time, but it was probably only five minutes” until he heard the sirens and saw the welcome splash of scarlet and white lights painting the dark street and announcing the arrival of the police.

When three officers approached — two with Tasers drawn and the third covering them with a gun, he gratefully lowered his bat and moved aside.

Paramedics arrived just behind the police and began attending to the man, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead at the scene by 11:30 p.m.