Joe Harker
A young woman who had her face mauled in a dog attack has shown the results of her reconstructive surgery.
Texas woman Jacqueline Durand said she was a 'survivor' after her face was torn off by two dogs she'd been asked to look after in 2021.
She explained that she'd previously got on with the animals before they suddenly turned on her, dragging her into their home before ripping off her nose, ears, lips and cheeks.
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Jacqueline has since been sharing her story in the hopes of raising awareness of the dangers dogs can pose to people.
The Texas woman said she feared she was 'going to die' after the dog attack, with the dogs that attacked her being a boxer and pit bull mix along with a German Shepherd mix.
"I didn't ask for this, so I think that it's time to show who I am now and I can't be scared of it," she told CBS when describing her experiences.
"I want for dog owners to know their animals and be able to communicate with their sitters how they are."
She'd been dogsitting for a family who'd told her the animals would be restrained, but when she got to the house they were roaming free.
Durand had been introduced to them before as part of a 'meet and greet' but when she arrived at the home on the day they attacked her they were completely different animals.
What saved her was an alarm going off because the front door had been left open, with police taking 37 minutes to arrive on the scene and rescue her from the dogs, by which point she'd lost a lot of blood.
Both dogs were ultimately destroyed following the attack and Durand had sued their owners for negligence.
The woman had to go through reconstructive surgery to replace the skin that had been torn off by the dogs
Durand has been sharing her journey on social media in the hopes of inspiring others, and had faced fears that her boyfriend would leave her following the attack.
She told him she'd 'changed forever' and asked if he still wanted to be with her but he'd told her he 'wouldn't want to be anywhere else'.
Despite the attack she said she still wanted to work with dogs because she still loved them, but she couldn't work with pit bulls and German Shepherds as she was still having flashbacks of the horrific attack.