Man recovering after Berkeley County dog attack

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – A man is recovering after he was attacked by a large dog Tuesday evening in Berkeley County.

Scott Cooper was in his driveway in the Windwood subdivision when the incident happened.

“We were outside by our Jeep. My wife noticed a dog in our driveway, and we hadn’t seen the dog before,” Cooper recalled.

“I just happened to hear somebody yelling and so I yelled down our driveway, I said ‘hey, are you looking for a dog?’ He said ‘yeah,’ I said, ‘well- he’s in our yard, come get him,’” his wife, Dominique Cooper, said.

Cooper said at first, the dog was wagging his tail, but then he jumped up.

“Then the dog jumped, which I thought was normal, you know, dogs jump. Until he started growling and it just went downhill from there and he took me to the ground pretty quick,” he said.

“All I see is him dragging my husband down to the ground and I just- I hear my husband, this bloodcurdling scream,” his wife recalled.

“Helpless. I know I got probably one, probably, decent punch into the dog’s head. It did absolutely nothing. I was literally I thought after he took me to the ground, I was just trying to cover my face at that point. That’s why my arms got so banged up. I really thought that was it,” Cooper said.

Cooper said he lost a son a few years ago to suicide. That, and thoughts of the Berkeley County man who was just mauled to death on Halloween by two dogs, went through his head.

He suffered numerous injuries.

“I kept thinking of the gentleman that just lost his life to those two dogs a few weeks ago, and I thought I was about to be in the same boat. I really did. Losing our son was enough. I didn’t want my wife to go through that again,” he said.

The owner received three citations, one for animal at large, one for no rabies vaccination, and one for public disturbance, Animal attack.