Pit bulls "tag-teamed" victim, 71

This was supposed to be a good year for Huong Le.

"She was in good health and had rediscovered her family in Vietnam," said Eric John Makus, who was raised by Le and regards her as his adopted mother. She was planning to visit Vietnam this year, he said.

The 71-year-old immigrant is now bound in bandages at a Seattle hospital, recovering from a brutal pit-bull attack Monday just feet from the front door of the SeaTac home where she works as a live-in caretaker.

Le spent more than 10 hours in surgery Monday at the trauma center at Harborview Medical Center, where surgeons worked painstakingly to preserve her hearing and reattach her ears, both of which had been ripped from her head, Makus said. Her jaw was broken and her right arm and wrist were crushed beyond complete repair, he said.

Her scalp is covered with staples and her legs have deep, raw wounds that cannot be completely closed because physicians fear trapping infection inside, Makus said.

"This was not a dog bite, it was attempted dismemberment," Makus said Tuesday. "There is no way to describe the savagery and carnage."

Two King County sheriff's deputies fatally shot the two pit bulls that attacked Le and seized two other pit bulls owned by the same man, Travis Cunningham Sr., 36, of SeaTac.

King County Animal Care and Control is investigating the attack and will determine whether Cunningham failed to follow a SeaTac ordinance requiring him to contain or muzzle his dogs, according to spokeswoman Nancy McKenney.

Le — who emigrated from Vietnam about 40 years ago and once lived with Makus as a caretaker — was attacked Monday morning in front of her SeaTac home after walking a child she cares for to the bus stop.

"She said she was walking back from the bus stop and the dogs were harassing her, running around her in circles and growling," said Makus, who has spoken to Le about the attack. She told Makus she had not seen the dogs before Monday. When she reached the home, the dogs got between her and the porch, he said. Makus said she told the dogs to "go home" and they attacked.

"They pulled her down to the ground and she was kicking and screaming and trying to get away, but they tag-teamed her," he said.

Cars drove by without stopping as she cried for help, he said she told him.

"She said the dogs were trying to rip her apart and she thought she was going to die," Makus said.

According to the King County Sheriff's Office, two deputies were in the SeaTac neighborhood when the 8:18 a.m. call for help came in from a neighbor who tried to intervene with a pitchfork. Deputies arrived at the home on South 150th Street within seconds of each other, saw the dogs on top of Le and shot the dogs, according to sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart.

Cunningham, the dogs' owner, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, but his 18-year-old son told KING-TV that the dogs had never been aggressive before.

"I just don't understand why they'd go and attack. They've never attacked anybody, even people who came over and stuff," Travis Cunningham Jr. told the television station.

The attack came as some anti-pit-bull activists in Seattle and Spokane are proposing bans against the breed.

Makus, 46, said he hopes charges are filed. If not, Le won't be eligible for victim-compensation funds.

Makus said Le fled war-torn North Vietnam 40 years ago and made her way to South Vietnam, where she was captured by a person Le described as a "bad man."

According to Makus, who said Le spoke little about those years, the man brought her illegally into the U.S., kept her captive and beat her before she was rescued by a friend of Makus' father.

She was taken in by the Makuses and became a member of their family, he said.

Makus' attorney father worked tirelessly to secure a green card for her, which finally came one week before his death.

In the years since, Le obtained her citizenship and worked as a caretaker for a number of individuals. Le never married nor had children of her own, Makus said.

For the past decade or so, he said, Le has worked as a caretaker and nanny for the SeaTac family of four she lives with.

"She was an angel in our family and she is the go-to person for those kids," he said. "They're absolutely heartbroken."

McKenney said King County has received 893 calls so far this year reporting either a dog bite or an encounter with a vicious dog, but she said the statistics are not separated by breed.

The Seattle Animal Shelter, however, does keep statistics on bites by breed.

According to the shelter, pit bulls account for a disproportionate number of reported bites in Seattle. While pit bulls make up only 4 percent of licensed dogs, they make up 22 percent of reported bites.

Makus said he is now an advocate of the breed ban.

"An attack like this is an attack on all of us. There is no room for this breed in our society, our city, our county, our state. It's a matter of public safety."

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com.

Times staff reporter Sanjay Bhatt contributed to this report.