Dog bites the tip off of a delivery woman's finger

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A FORMER postwoman turned courier has warned fellow deliverers in Uttoxeter after having to have part of her finger amputated after it was bitten off by a dog.

Ysanne Walters, of Ashbrook Close, Uttoxeter, suffered the horrific injury as she put a notice through a door on her round in Copes Way on Saturday afternoon and now faces life without part of her index finger on her right hand.

Mrs Walters, who worked as a postwoman for 18 years before changing career to become a parcel courier, regularly delivers in the Heath area of the town.

The 55-year-old told the Advertiser her shock at the incident and how it came to happen.

She said: “I was delivering a parcel but the owners weren’t in so I put it somewhere safe. Our procedure is to put a card through the door to say it’s safe. As I did it the dog grabbed my index finger.

It was just gone and the dog had it so there was no getting it back! “It was very painful but it was also just shock.
Somehow though I was completely calm — I even thought to lock the car because there were lots of packages still in there. I went down the road to a woman I had just delivered to as I knew she was in and I put it under the tap and rang my daughter.
“She came and brought me back home and we called my husband and went to A&E at Queen’s Hospital in Burton. I was there for about three hours and they froze it and cleaned it out before sending me to Derby to a hand specialist.

“They could not get me in on Saturday night so they did the operation on Sunday morning and amputated the top of my finger. I’ve got to go back this week to see what’s going on.

“If it gets infected they might have to amputate further down the finger. I don’t know how it’s going to affect me as it is I can’t do anything. I am sure I will adapt though.” Mrs Walters said she had delivered to the house hundreds of times and knew the German Shepherd dog well and has no ill-feeling towards it.

“I am not the kind of person to get angry about it”, she said, “I just want to warn people how easily it can be done. If you just think how many envelopes we get through the door you just have to be so careful.

“I know the dog so I wouldn’t have done anything different. It’s a beautiful dog. I have done that round for six or seven years and delivered to that house hundreds of times. That why I was so surprised.” Uttoxeter police told the Advertiser they had been called about the incident and were looking into it although any prosecution of the owners is unlikely.

Sergeant Ian Cantrill said: “We are looking in to it but it’s not in a public place so it would not come under the Dangerous Dog Act.”