A San Antonio man died Sunday, nearly one month after being attacked by a dog on the Northeast side.
According to the San Antonio Police Department’s preliminary police report, two American Staffordshire Terriers attacked 47-year-old Paul Anthony Striegl while he sat outside his mobile home at 9511 Heidelberg Street on the morning of Sept. 5.
He was transported to Brooke Army Medical Center in critical condition with bites on both his arms and stomach. Striegl remained hospitalized for a month, and during that time he suffered a stroke and lost part of his left arm before his death on Sunday.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office will not do an autopsy or issue a report, Bexar County spokesperson Tom Peine said. The cause of death will be determined based on the medical records, which will be made available by Brooke Army Medical Center.
SAPD’s homicide division investigated the attack, and no criminal charges are expected. At the time of the bite, Animal Care Services filed three criminal citations — one for each dog that was free of restraint, and one for the bite itself — which will go to court later in the fall, said Lisa Norwood, spokeswoman for ACS.
The dogs belonged to Striegl’s next door neighbor, Gregory Palmer, according to the police report, and the “gruesome” attack happened when the dogs were let out to urinate in the yard.
Two dogs were involved in the attack: A male pit bull named Ghost and a female pit bull named Venus, who escaped a fence, the police report said. ACS found that only the male dog, Ghost, was involved in the biting incident.
Palmer attended a municipal court hearing on Sept. 14 to establish the facts of the case and determine what will happen to the dogs.
Judge Lisa Gonzales confirmed that the dog inflicted serious bodily injury on the victim, and ruled that Ghost be euthanized after hearing testimonies from ACS dangerous dog investigators and first responders who were at the scene.
Ghost was euthanized on Sept. 26 and Venus was returned to the owners after being sterilized, Norwood said, adding that responsible pet guardianship can prevent attacks like this one.
“Sterilized animals are less likely to be involved in potentially dangerous roaming situations and no dog should be allowed off their property without being leashed and under the control of their adult handler,” Norwood said. “Fences and gates should be regularly checked and kept in good repair to ensure our pets remain on our property.”
Days before the attack on Sept. 3, another dog attacked a 68-year-old man on the West Side.
ACS said Striegl’s death is the second death stemming from dog attacks in San Antonio this year.
In February, 81-year-old veteran Ramon Najera died in a fatal mauling by two unleashed pit bull mixes on the West Side. The number of sworn statements reporting dangerous dogs in San Antonio tripled in the months after the attack, although most were deemed “unfounded.”
After Najera’s death, the city tracked ACS’s response rate for the first time, finding it only responds to only about 40% of the roughly 90,000 calls from residents seeking help with stray or dangerous animals per year. A new approved budget seeks to increase that by 26%, but the department wants to bring the rate up to 100% over the next three years by hiring more officers who respond to dangerous dogs and adding more investigators.
On Monday, Striegl’s father-in-law and roommate Chuck Sutton answered questions from reporters outside of the home where he and Striegl lived for three years.
Grieving the death of the man he described as his son, Sutton expressed frustration with first responders’ response to the dog attack. While he was on the ground with Striegl, Sutton said he pointed a gun at the dogs with one hand while he called 9-1-1. He said the dogs recognized what a gun was and ran to the back gate to hide.
Sutton said that when first responders arrived, they did not enter the gate for 10 minutes until he yelled for his friend’s life.
“If they’d maybe gotten in here 10 minutes earlier, Paul might still be alive,” Sutton said.
“Give the EMS people something to fight the dogs with: Pepper spray, bear spray, tasers. Those guys need something,” Sutton said. “Why don’t they carry something to fend off wild animals or attacking dogs? It just doesn’t make sense not to.”
This story has been updated with additional statements from SAPD, ACS and Bexar County.
