A good Samaritan credits her specs for stopping a dog biting out her eyeball - when she tried to stop her pal's mutt escaping and it sank its teeth into her face. Alana Lisle was helping a friend move his Chinese red dog-cross from his old property to a new one, giving the pair a lift in her car.
The 42-year-old says when they opened the boot the unsettled pooch didn't want to come out and scrambled to the front seat. Worried she'd bolt out of the car once the door opened, Alana reached in to grab her lead and in a 'split-second' the dog lunged, knocked her over and sunk her teeth into her face.
Alana claims the glasses she was wearing, that were knocked off her face in the tussle, saved her sight as it prevented the dog from damaging her eyeball instead and instead just punctured her eyelid. After her friend got control of the dog, Alana had to dash to A&E when her eye doubled in size later that day, where she needed IV antibiotics to tackle the infection.
Three months on from her ordeal on August 7th, Alana is urging people to be mindful around dogs they don't own as her good deed almost cost her sight. Alana, from Blyth, Northumberland, said: "I was helping a friend who was moving house and he asked me if I would help them move their dog over.
![Alana Lisle with a swollen face](https://i2-prod.walesonline.co.uk/incoming/article28188519.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/0_KNM_EYEBALL_BITE_SPECS_SAVER_5.jpg)
"She's a big cross-breed called a Chinese red dog, she looks like a Doberman. I knew the dog a bit before, I'd interacted with her before, she was a little bit nervous as the guy got her as a rescue but I never thought 'she's going to bite my face'.
"She went into the car absolutely fine and we drove over. When we went to get out of the car she didn't want to come. She went as if she was going to jump over the seat so I opened the side door to stop her jumping out.
"I went to get a hold of the lead and in a split-second she jumped, knocked me over, knocked my glasses off and bit my face just above and through my eyebrow. I credit my specs for saving my eyesight, I think if they hadn't gone flying she would have just latched onto my face and got a better hold."
She washed the bloodied wound with warm water and thought nothing more of it until later in the day when her eye doubled in size and closed over. After going to a walk-in centre she was advised to go to A&E before being referred to another hospital with a specialist eye department.
There, doctors cleaned the wound, assessed the damage to her eyelid and kept her in for five days while giving her IV antibiotics to tackle the infection.
Alana said: "I didn't realise how bad it was at the time. I cleaned it up and thought 'it doesn't look too bad'. An hour later my eye totally swelled up, it was massive and closed over. It was really puffy.
"It was double the size it normally is, it got to the point I couldn't open it or see out of it. I went to my local walk-in thinking they would see me but they said with it being an eye I needed to go to A&E."
![Alana Lisle with a swollen face and bruising to her eye on the left](https://i2-prod.walesonline.co.uk/incoming/article28188491.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/0_KNM_EYEBALL_BITE_SPECS_SAVER_4.jpg)
Alana went to Cramlington A&E in Cramlington, Northumberland, before being referred to the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle. Dog lover Alana stayed in hospital for four days before being sent home with a two-week course of antibiotics.
Alana said: "At A&E they put some orange dye in to see if my eye had been damaged, gave me some antibiotics and said I needed to go to RVI. There was no damage to my eyeball, they believe she punctured the inside of my eyelid.
"I was in hospital until Friday. They monitored it, gave me IV antibiotics and stitched it up. When I was allowed home I had to put cream on it every day for two weeks and I also had two weeks worth of oral antibiotics."
Alana, who has two dogs of her own, is sharing her story to encourage people to use their 'common sense' and not act on natural instinct of interacting with dogs that aren't yours.
Alana said: "It has made me a bit nervous about bigger dogs now. My advice would be to use your common sense and if you don't know the dog get the person who owns them to deal with them. I've had dogs all my life and it's a natural instinct to act, I didn't think she would turn round and bite me on the face."