Dog attack
An Upper Macungie Township woman was mauled to death by her dog Thursday afternoon on the rear deck of her home, despite the attempts of neighbors to draw the dog away, police and witnesses said.

An off-duty police officer eventually ended the attack about 1:30 p.m. by shooting the dog once in its leg, but it was too late.

Lisa Green, 32, of the 900 block of Spring White Drive bled badly at the scene, neighbors said. She was taken by Cetronia Ambulance to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest, where she was pronounced dead at 2:46 p.m.

Loretta Ottinger, a next-door neighbor, said she heard Green calling, "Someone help me!" She went to a window and saw the dog, a 3 1/2-year-old pitbull-boxer mix, biting Green's legs, neck and head.

Ottinger said she tried to stop the dog's attack, first by hitting it with a meaty hambone, then by hitting the dog with a stick. But the mauling continued.


"I went up to the deck and I hit him with the ham, so he'd see it and he'd go after it," Ottinger said. "I thought if Lisa could get free and roll over, the dog would be off her jugular. But he ignored the ham. He was just picking her up and throwing her down."

Ottinger got a 4-foot-long piece of wood from another neighbor and rammed it through the deck slats at the dog, who fought back.

"I tried to stab the dog's eyes with the board, but he took the board in his mouth and he broke it," she said. "Then I didn't know what to do. He started mauling her some more."


Meanwhile, neighbor Vidya Chellapilla called off-duty Slatington police Chief David Rachman, who also lives nearby. Rachman rushed over and fired his handgun twice, wounding the dog once.

Chellapilla said the dog became calm, hovered over Green a moment and then limped to the far side of the deck, where it dropped.

Pennsylvania dog warden Orlando Aguire tranquilized the dog and took it into custody. The dog was taken to the Lehigh County Humane Society where, Aguire said, it will be put to death.

The dog also will be tested in an attempt to help determine what touched off the violence, he said.

The grisly attack happened in the Breinigsville section of Upper Macungie, just south of Hamilton Boulevard and 7 miles southwest of Allentown.

Green had the dog, named Leon, for about 2 1/2 years, Ottinger said.

"She was really close with her dog," she said. "It was a pit bull. They're pretty strong dogs."


Ottinger said that even after witnessing the attack and seeing Green motionless on the blood-stained back deck, she had hope she would survive.

"I just thought she was going to make it," she said. "She was too young to die."

Ottinger shook her head.

"I love dogs," she said, "but wow, I just don't know why anyone would get a pit bull."

She remembered her neighbor, whom she described as "a lovely woman, athletic, always looked impeccably neat," a good neighbor who kindly shoveled the Ottinger driveway after the last winter snow.

"She kept to herself, but we'd take walks together," Ottinger said. "We never took the dog for a walk, and I hadn't seen her take the dog for a walk in a while, since he was younger."

Green grew up in the Palmerton area and was a graduate of Lehigh University, Ottinger said. She was a manager for a Bed, Bath & Beyond store, she said.

Upper Macungie police Chief Edgardo Colon said the attack was still happening when township police arrived, but ended soon after. Officers secured the dog, he said.

The case remains under investigation by Upper Macungie police, the Lehigh County coroner's office and the dog warden.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 to 30 people are killed in the U.S. each year in dog attacks.