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An Arizona animal lover says she screamed for nearly 30 minutes as she was mauled by a stray dog she took in – eventually losing an arm that was “chewed out.”
Kalista Munoz, 25, is only now opening up about the July attack that left her in a coma for several days and needing 18 surgeries, including the amputation of her mangled right arm.
“I always say I danced with the devil and I looked him in the eyes,” Munoz told AZFamily.
The student was already caring for several other foster animals when she agreed to help Zona, a stray found by a friend. Zona gave her no trouble for three months until he got into a fight with one of her other pooches.
“He escaped from my room, which is where he was. He had a cone on, but with no hesitation, he darted downstairs,” she recalled.
In a panic, Munoz tried to drag Zona into a bathroom.
“I eventually got trapped in there. And by the time I could grab the door, unfortunately, this part of my arm was already chewed out,” she said, pointing to where her right arm now ends just below the elbow.
Munoz screamed for help for nearly 30 minutes before her neighbor called police.
Still, “I knew I wasn’t going to die like this,” she said.
She spent a month in the hospital, where she also was in a coma for several days, but eventually needed to have her mangled arm amputated due to an infection.
The report did not say what breed the stray was, not what happened to Zona after the attack.
Munoz said: “He was a really good dog but something was abused and imprinted in him.”
Six months after the life-changing attack, Munoz said there are still days where she thinks, “Why can’t I just have my hand back?”
But she remains sanguine and doesn’t let the experience delay her plans as she pursues a master’s degree in social justice at Arizona State University.
“I shouldn’t have to postpone my life anymore because something bad happened to me. There’s beauty in tragedy, you know, and I believe that my journey is someone else’s survival guide.”
Following the attack, her friend CJ Norrick created a GoFundMe page, which has collected nearly $10,000.
“Kalista is a sweet soul with a big smile and an even bigger heart,” Norrick wrote in the fundraiser. “If she ever won the lottery, there definitely would be clear signs … because every dog & cat would be saved from every animal shelter. To say the least, this woman is a hardcore animal lover.”
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