Tuesday's Internet Edition, May 13, 2008.
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Mary Cornelison, of Albertson Road, was attacked by a pit bull at the home of Dustin Wardlaw on Unity Street on May 1 when trying to find the owner of a beagle she found in her driveway. She thought the dog belonged to another neighbor, but that neighbor wasn’t home, so she knocked on Wardlaw’s door.
What happened next left her in Thomasville Medical Center for an entire week.
After she knocked on the door, the pit bull, known to his owner as “Marley,” jumped through the screen, attacking Cornelison and sending her to the concrete pavement. Wardlaw’s girlfriend, Monica McMasters, took Cornelison to TMC after she said, “Get me to the hospital.”
No charges have been filed on McMasters or Wardlaw because they didn’t break a law. Thomasville does have a leash law, but it doesn’t apply to a dog attacking someone on the pet owner’s property, Thomasville Police Department Lt. Raymond Widener confirmed.
Widener said an investigation into the case has been closed.
That hasn’t stopped Cornelison and her son’s, Dwayne and Dwight Cornelison, from questioning Thomasville’s code of ordinances.
“If a little girl scout had came to the door selling cookies and went to the door, where would she be at today? In the grave,” Mary Cornelison said in a phone interview from her bed at TMC. “What if the mailman had a package to deliver to them? I think the [ordinance] is a low-down-dirty shame.”
Because the case is closed, Cornelison does have the option to pursue civil litigation. However, she doesn’t want the matter to go that far as she hopes the dog’s owners will pay for her medical bills.
“The injuries are very painful physically,” Dwayne Cornelison said. “Pain killers help to blunt the physical pain but not the emotional pain and the fear she experienced. The road to recovery will be a long and painful one, both physically and psychologically, for both her and our family.”
Calling to check on Cornelison’s condition twice while she has been in the hospital, McMasters said, “We want to help her out in every aspect and she didn’t mean for [attack] to happen.”
McMasters said the dog has no history of being vicious. She plans to get her dog back from the Davidson County Animal Shelter, where he was taken for observation, this weekend. An attempt to reach Maj. Chris Coble of the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, who is in charge of the animal shelter, was unsuccessful Friday.
“My dog is normally on a chain,” McMasters said. “We live in a bad part of the area. I hate that it happened. It is for our protection, but nothing like that. We saw the door as a barrier, but it wasn’t one. We would like for other people to know that.”
“I love my dog and I’m an animal lover,” McMasters continued. “It is really unfortunate, but I look at him like my kid. If my kid does something wrong, I’m not going to shoot him in the head.”
Staff Writer Darrick Ignasiak can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 231, or ignasiak@tvilletimes.com.