A dog bit off the finger of a man in Thessaloniki and its owner was handed an eight-months-suspended prison sentence, by the Three-member Criminal Court of Thessaloniki charged him with negligent bodily harm. The incident occurred in 2018.

As it emerged from the court hearing, the man let his dog loose in the courtyard of his business which was unlocked, and the canine went out into the street and attacked the victim who was walking with his small dog. As soon as he approached the fence of the yard area of ​​the business that the accused maintained, then his dog, 45 kg, ran out and attacked him fiercely. The man was seriously injured to his hand resulting in one of his fingers being amputated.

As the police statement by the victim (now deceased from unrelated reasons to the case), read out in court described, “I felt something coming at me, from the left side. The dog literally jumped towards me and bit me on the left arm, causing me serious bodily harm.”

“I tried to push the big dog and as soon as I succeeded, I saw the blood on my hands. I immediately went to the Evosmos Health Center and from there I was transferred by an EKAV ambulance to the Agios Pavlos hospital”, the deposition read, stressing that he suffered a lot from the incident and, moreover, was in immediate danger of losing his job at the company he was working for.

As it became known in the hearing, this particular dog had previously attacked the victim’s minor son, but without injuring him.