Witness: 'The dogs were eating the man alive'

WALTON COUNTY, Ga. — A 52-year-old man is hospitalized after he was attacked by a dog, his family says.

Tommy Joe Byrd’s family said he was attacked at 5 a.m. Saturday while he was on a morning walk in Monroe, Georgia.

An off-duty officer shot and killed one Rottweiler, but another Rottweiler escaped with one gunshot wound.

Byrd’s family said he may lose limbs and an eye.

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Shanda Wise said she woke up to the sound of a man screaming in pain so she and her daughter drove to try and help.

“When we got around there we never expected to see what we saw,” Wise said. “The dogs were not fazed; they would not stop.”

Wise and her daughter didn't get out of their car but they flagged down a Social Circle police officer on his way to work.

Byrd’s family came back to the scene Monday to try to make sense of the attack.

They say Byrd is in a medically induced coma with more than a hundred stitches just in his head.

Some neighbors say it wasn't the first time the dogs were spotted in the neighborhood.

“I saw this dark-skinned man walking with both of them on a leash,” Wise said.

Wise said it makes her uncomfortable now for her children to be in the backyard.

“If those dogs had come, they could have gotten my son,” Wise said.

Cox Media Group