COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah (ABC 4 News) - A pit bull attacked a local mail carrier on Wednesday and thankfully he is back on the street Friday. But as for the pit bull he has been put to sleep after the attack.
The attack happened in Cottonwood Heights area where Norm Frye was doing his daily mail delivery. Normally mail carriers deliver solo but Wednesday Frye had his supervisor with him, and that's what saved his life.
The pit bull went straight for Frye's leg, he said, "The pit bull was hiding or somewhere where I couldn't see him, and he charged me. I thought at first it might be a bluff charge, he never let up and he was on me in two or three seconds."
The dog tore into his thigh, shin, and thumb. He never got a chance to use his pepper spray. Frye said, "He got me on the ground, hit me on my shin and sent me flying. I dropped my dog spray and my hat fell off."
Frye's supervisor grabbed the dog spray and sprayed the dog a couple of times. Frye said at that point, "the dog retreated into the driveway."
Frye feels lucky that he wasn't alone this time, he said his supervisor "pretty much saved my life. Had he not been there? Who knows...once you're on the ground you're very vulnerable. It shakes you up to the core its not something you'll forget."
Animal services put the pit bull to sleep after the attack, it was the second time the animal had bitten someone. And it was the second time in his fourteen year career that Frye has been bitten he said, "there have been lots of near misses but its all apart of the job."
This case points to why the Post Office wants better reporting of dog bites. They want a better tracking system, something that will give them a heads up to any dog with a history of biting.
Postal workers are bitten about forty times a year in Utah. Officials say its time for animal services and police departments to share reports of vicious dogs, before an attack.
Ron Hubrich of the U.S. Postal Service said, "We want to look at another way, maybe coordinating with local state agencies, animal control, police departments, sharing some data."
Police departments already report crimes on Crimetracker Reporting but dog attacks are seldom found. Hubrich said, "If they have incidents of a dog bite somewhere that we don't have and we don't know when we can get it to the carrier and let them know, and we could get that information back to them.
