A 55-year-old Florida woman has revealed how she survived a terrifying dog attack that left her arms and leg destroyed by pretending to be dead in a trench for hours.
Stephanie Walker, a former food truck owner and mother of three, was returning to her 40-acre farm in Hamilton County at midnight in September 2022 when the nightmare unfolded.
It was pitch black and after checking on her dogs in the feeding room, she noticed that a rescue pit bull mix named Buddy, who she was temporarily fostering for a friend, hadn’t gone to the bathroom.
She grabbed a flashlight and a leash so she could walk him, but when she left the barn, the 80-pound dog with a “huge” neck and head began growling.
Seconds later, he pounced on him. He grabbed her right arm and tore it. She then sank her teeth into her thigh and tore off a large chunk before attacking his arms again, which was when she heard the bone break.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Walker said: “I was shouting, ‘Dude, stop! Why are you doing this?” I was talking to a dog that was trying to kill me.’
‘I knew at that moment it was ‘do or die.’ No one came to rescue me.’
Stephanie Walker, 55, grew up with dogs and said she always had at least four at a time.
Buddy, a pit bull mix, from Miami-Dade Animal Control, was a rescue who had been living with her for three weeks before the near-fatal attack.
He spent six weeks in the burn unit at Gainesville University Hospital in Florida.
Walker desperately tried to fight back and strangle the dog with the leash still in his left hand, but he had no strength.
“I was screaming, begging him to stop,” she recalled.
Alone, unarmed and terrified, it was at that moment that she felt her mindset shift and freeze. She stayed as still as possible while the dog grabbed her left shoulder.
He managed to crawl to a nearby ditch that ran the length of his property: about 32 inches deep and 18 inches wide.
She said: “I remember thinking that fighting this dog isn’t working for me; I’m going to play dead.”
She curled up in a fetal position to protect her torso and sat in the mud, dirt and gravel as heavy rain fell on her.
“I had put my long hair up in a bun and I remember being terrified he was going to scalp me,” she said..
‘He started sniffing my right ear twice. I didn’t flinch and then it disappeared,” she said.
With no idea how much time had passed, Walker finally climbed out of the ditch and began limping toward the road.
His flashlight was gone and the only light came from the headlights of a passing car.
Moments later, he thought he saw a deer bounding across the street, only to realize with horror that it was Buddy: he had returned.
“I literally almost died. All I could think was that I had no idea how to get away from this dog now. “I’m outdoors and literally standing in the middle of the road,” she said.
The car had passed without stopping and Buddy was getting closer and closer to her.
She froze, bringing her arms close to her body and fighting the urge to run.
“He came over, sniffed both my arms and then ran into the woods with another dog,” she said.
At that point, Walker walked as fast as he could toward the barn.
“My right arm was completely disabled and I had three fingers on my left arm, but I could turn the handle,” he said.
Once inside, she remembers feeling overwhelmed by thirst and so weak that she didn’t even have the strength to locate her cell phone.
‘I sat on the bed. I cried. I screamed. I prayed and then I fainted,” she recalled.
It wasn’t until 5 a.m., when the alarm went off, that he was able to locate the phone under the bed.
Finally, after five hours of hell, paramedics, police and her son arrived to help.
She said the moment she got into the ambulance, they saw the dog running down the road toward the barn looking for her.
She told the sheriff that the dog was a threat and to “shoot it.” That gunshot was the last thing she heard before falling into a deep, medicated sleep.
“Then it was over,” he recalled.
Stephanie Walker said she no longer rescues dogs and takes her own life day by day
Walker’s right arm was shattered and had to be rebuilt after the attack.
The dog tore off large chunks of Walker’s leg during the vicious attack.
Walker was transported to a local hospital about 20 miles away.
Doctors were concerned about the amount of blood she had lost and quickly airlifted her to the University of Florida Gainesville Hospital.
Walker spent the next six weeks in the hospital’s burn unit. He had serious infections from dog bites after lying in the dirt and mud of the ditch.
His broken right arm had to be completely rebuilt and his left arm was missing patches of skin. His right thigh was also severely damaged.
“The thought that drove me to stay alive was that I didn’t want my 19-year-old daughter to find me dead on the farm,” she said.
Walker explained that she was only taking care of Buddy for a few weeks before he went to live with a woman in New Hampshire.
She said the Miami-Dade County shelter never informed her that the dog was dangerous, but the driver who transported it to her home mentioned that it was aggressive. At her house, he growled a little but seemed calmer.
“I thought I was safe because I was in my own house,” she said. ‘I had an exit strategy, but once I was on the farm in that open space there was no exit strategy, I had no weapons. I didn’t have a weapon, it didn’t even occur to me.
The barn on Walker’s 40-acre farm located in Hamilton County, and where Buddy and the other dogs were staying.
The feeding room (pictured) where Walker hid after the attack before help arrived.
Walker’s right arm is stitched but still has visible scars, bruising and bleeding.
Walker’s arm shows some signs of improvement
It’s been more than two years since the horrific experience, and while most of Walker’s injuries have healed, she has limitations due to the injuries she suffered.
‘I have very little dexterity in my right hand. I can not cook. I can’t hold a knife. I can’t pick up a pen. I can’t write… things like that are so weird… that you assume I just can’t do it.
Unable to do the heavy lifting, Walker sold the farm and moved to Georgia.
She is now fighting for legislation to help protect others from dangerous dogs and testified in Tallahassee for Pam Rock’s dangerous dog bill, named after a postal worker who was killed by two loose dogs in 2022.
The bill did not pass, but he hopes it will gain more momentum in the future.
For now, she’s just taking life one day at a time. And incredibly, although she no longer rescues dogs, she still has six puppies living with her at home.