Family copes with trauma of dog attack
Jeremy Warren, The StarPhoenix
Published: Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Jackie Derdall was paralyzed this week at the sight of a dog running through a field near her home despite watching from the safety of her living room, dozens of metres from the animal.
"I froze. It just caught me off-guard," Derdall, 41, said from her Vanscoy home.
Jogging down a dirt road in the small town two weeks ago, Derdall was attacked for about 10 minutes by two large dogs that had escaped their cage in a mechanic's shop. The dogs dragged her across the road as they ceaselessly sunk their teeth into Derdall's limbs.
Jackie Derdall and husband Kevin in their Vanscoy home Tuesday, where Jackie is recovering from a dog attack which left her with extensive injuriesView Larger Image View Larger Image
Jackie Derdall and husband Kevin in their Vanscoy home Tuesday, where Jackie is recovering from a dog attack which left her with extensive injuries
Greg Pender, The StarPhoenix
In a ditch filled with ice-cold water, Derdall fought back -- biting the dogs and shoving fingers in their eyes -- but the dogs could only be removed by an RCMP officer.
The attack left deep wounds up and down her arms and legs, which are only starting to heal after three surgeries.
Derdall returned to her home in Vanscoy, southwest of Saskatoon, on Saturday after an 11-day stay at St. Paul's Hospital, where she's a nurse in the OR.
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Sitting in a black leather chair where she spends most of her day, Derdall recalls how she demanded the paramedics driving her to Saskatoon after the attack take her St. Paul's instead of the Royal University Hospital, where most trauma victims end up.
Once she got there, she said it was the right decision.
"It was very important to go to St. Paul's, where I'd see familiar faces. I saw three faces I knew and I knew I was in good hands. It gave me that much more comfort," Derdall said.
It took two surgeries in successive days to flush out her wounds before a third surgery could start to close them. During the next few days, as her husband Kevin and her twin 12-year-old boys, Jared and Riley, sat by her side, Derdall slowly recovered.
"(The boys) had a couple days. Jackie wasn't herself. She had panic attacks where she didn't know where she was. She thought she had lost her legs in a car accident because it was dark and she couldn't move," Kevin said.
"Mom's here now and they're out playing with friends. Everything's fine," Jackie said.The family is moving back into familiar routines. Kevin's working half days at the Vanscoy school where he's vice-principal and is coaching the boys in fastball. The injuries are still painful -- Derdall can't move around for more than five minutes before tiring -- but the family is in good spirits and laughs come easily.
Looking back on the mauling, a few centimetres could have changed all that, Derdall said.
"There were a lot of factors that could have meant me not being here today. A slight change in the angle of the dogs' bite would have hit a major artery in my arm," she said.
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On April 10, Derdall, a life-long jogger, decided on a different route for her regular seven-kilometre run, which took her by Sid's Auto Service. As she passed the dilapidated but operational autobody shop, Derdall saw two large dogs approach her from behind.
"They didn't charge, but as soon as I saw them I knew this was bad," she recalled.
Turning away from the dogs, she started walking instead of running, which she thought might set off the dogs. But one came up behind her and started biting her. She tried calling 911, but the dispatcher had trouble hearing Derdall over the barking and growling.
Jackie Derdall was paralyzed this week at the sight of a dog running through a field...
Family copes with trauma of dog attack
Jeremy Warren, The StarPhoenix
Published: Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Derdall was dragged to the ground. She screamed and kicked the dogs. Two women appeared, yelling at the dogs, but they left after failing to scare them off Derdall.
A thick jacket covered most of Derdall's torso and her neck, but the dogs were pulling at her jacket and it was about to come off.
"At that point I knew I had about 30 seconds before I was completely exposed," she said.
Derdall was already tired from running six of her seven kilometres before taking on the dogs. Fatigue was setting in -- "I didn't know how much longer I could fight," Derdall said -- but an RCMP officer arrived and the dogs scattered when he shouted and charged at them.
The officer took her halfway to Saskatoon before meeting an ambulance, which took Derdall the rest of the way to St. Paul's.
Two days later, Kevin spotted the dogs roaming near his house and he phoned the RCMP, who destroyed the dogs an hour later.
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The Derdalls aren't blaming anyone for the attack. The owner of Sid's is their regular mechanic and Kevin said if he knew his dogs were out, he'd have rounded them up long ago. But he was out of town.
"It bothers us that if the dogs had been out as long as people say they were, then something should have been done to grab them," Kevin said.
The family would rather focus on the friends, family and co-workers who've helped with Derdall's recovery.
"People have been unbelievable. We've had to start saying no because they've offered so much," Kevin said.
Derdall's co-workers at St. Paul's, some of whom worked extra shifts to assist in her three surgeries, were singled out for praise several times. "I couldn't have gotten better care anywhere," Derdall said.
She still faces much physical therapy and plastic surgery in the coming weeks and months. She's lost the use of two fingers on her right hand and she only recently started to be able to move her wrist again.
When she's better, she'll start jogging, but she will carry protection.
"(And) we'll be getting a treadmill now," Kevin said, only half joking.