A 62-year-old man was nearly killed in a vicious attack by two pit bulls as neighbors frantically tried to intervene in the Bronx, police said.
Francesco Bove said he was heading into Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on Belmont Avenue and 187th Street when the dogs got off their leash Friday morning.
“The Father read him his last rites because he looked like he was going to die,” Bove’s son, Anthony, told the Daily News Saturday. “But the Father said he had to promise to fight through it.”
Police said the dog's owner, Cynthia Oliver, ordered the dogs to attack, but Francesco Bove said that wasn't true.
Bove, an artist who lives in Coney Island, did not know Oliver or interact with her. He was in the area to look into restoring the marble at the church.
Graphic video taken from a nearby apartment shows the dogs relentlessly lunge at Bove as he twists on the ground. A good Samaritan stood over Bove to protect him as the dogs kept up their assault, even dragging him to the curb with their teeth.
“It was very clear from my father that while he was on the floor that the dogs wanted his blood, they wanted it,” Anthony Bove said. “They were licking the blood where it was sprayed on the street.”
Several neighbors soon jumped in, armed with hoses, chains and bats, to pull the dogs off. While they whipped the dogs away and blasted them with water, the pit bulls went after another good Samaritan, 46-year-old Emilio Ortiz, police said.
As the action moved off-camera, blood spread out from Bove before he got up and walked away.
“He wasn’t really all there when he got out of that pool of blood,” Anthony Bove, 35, said.
Francesco Bove and Ortiz were transported to Saint Barnabas Hospital in stable condition.
