Clearly, much went wrong last Friday night in LaGrange. There was no way for anyone to have been prepared for what happened to 41-year-old Karen Stewart when she went for a walk to unwind on a back country road in that rural community north of Bangor and ran into an American bulldog mix named Pig.
There was no way her friend Vaughn Adams, with whom she was staying, could have been prepared when she dragged her mauled and bloodied body back to his home after the attack.
There was no way for the first responding EMTs to have been prepared for the severity of those wounds.
Certainly that was way beyond any normal 911 call for that mostly volunteer group.
There are few who can remember such a severe and violent dog attack in the state — an attack so vicious that it forced doctors to place Stewart in a medically induced coma to spare her from the severe pain of her injuries.
She remains in critical condition and may lose both of her arms.
And perhaps there was no way to prepare those left to deal with the dog — but someone had to — and just like those with the task of dealing with Stewart’s wounds, there wasn’t a whole lot of precedent. There were a lot of questions, a lot of angst, an enormous amount of emotion, a lot of fear and uncertainty.
Suzan Bell, executive director of the Bangor Humane Society, couldn’t do one single thing about Karen Stewart’s situation, but like so many others in this tragic tale, Bell found herself in an extraordinary and unmatched position.
She had the dog.
You think you had a Monday morning this week?
Welcome to her world and the world of the staff at the Bangor Humane Society on Monday morning, Nov. 15.
Like all of us, Bell and the staff are reading the newspaper reports of this attack. They are watching the local TV news.
They are reading and hearing about this horrific attack — the gruesome details — wondering whether Stewart will survive and in what condition.
The whole time, in a backroom of their building, sits the dog responsible, the blood now washed off his muzzle.
And they need to feed him — safely. And treat him — humanely. Because there is no room for torture there, and there is no room to put the staff in danger there — and there are laws to be followed.
And remember — there is very little precedent — and the laws are vague at best.
The Bangor Humane Society had no legal obligation to take a dog so vicious, but the dog needed to be quarantined. Rabies testing needed to be done and the small town of LaGrange certainly isn’t equipped for that, and sadly the state is not, either.
The Bangor Humane Society could safely quarantine the dog and agreed to do it because it was the right thing to do.
But while Stewart was fighting for her life in a Boston hospital and while the Maine State Police were considering the charges that they could file against the owner of the dog, Bell was put in a position to think about just how long the dog might be sitting in a small kennel in the back of the BHS building.
If a court action became necessary, then the dog could be at BHS for months. Is it safe for a staff person to take the dog on walks? To let the dog outside? How long would the dog last mentally if left 24 hours a day in quarantine in a kennel?
The dog tore a woman apart. The dog needed to be put down. There was no way the dog was ever going to be considered safe.
In Boston there are doctors who are working feverishly to save Karen Stewart’s life — to deal with injuries they probably have never seen before.
On Mount Hope Avenue in Bangor a little group of people worked feverishly this week to do their part on the other end. To find a resolution that was just and humane and moral.
On Thursday, after the owner agreed to sign over the rights to the dog to the town of LaGrange, the dog was humanely anesthetized and put down at a veterinary hospital. It will be tested by the state for signs of rabies.
It was an awful, awful week — but a small, dedicated staff in Bangor stepped up and did their part — morally, ethically and professionally.
Renee Ordway is a member of the board of directors of the Bangor Humane Society. E-mail her at reneeordway@gmail.com and listen to her and co-host Dan Frazell from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on the radio at 103.1 The Pulse and 620 AM.