A woman has shared the terrifying story of how a dog bit her nose off, leaving her with life-changing injuries and a three-year journey of facial reconstruction.
In a viral TikTok video, she recalls the moment that changed her life forever, just ten days after meeting her now-fiancé.
She says she had been dating her now-fiancé for a little over a week when he suggested a trip to Florida to visit his brother.
The group stayed at the brother's house, where his girlfriend's dog (an enormous Boerboel) was present.
As she says: "if you don't know what that is, look it up, it's absolutely huge, it's an African mastiff, like, insanely big, I'm lucky to be alive."
She describes the bite as "completely unprovoked, like, I wasn't really doing anything with the dog." The scene was casual: "there was me, my now-fiancé, the dog owner, and we were all sitting on the floor playing with, there were two dogs, there was also a chocolate lab, so we're, like, petting the dogs, whatever," she remembers.
She says she reached to pet the Boerboel and "then the next thing I know, he is latched onto me, like this, and not letting go."
Panic followed. "Everyone's kind of, like, screaming, it was, like, really traumatic, everybody's screaming," she recalls.
She says she tried to stay steady in the chaos: "everyone's freaking out, and I'm, like, everybody please, please calm down, like, you guys need to calm down so I can remain calm."
When the dog finally released her, "blood pouring out of my face," she says, the household rushed her to hospital.
"They did call an ambulance, but we honestly passed the ambulance on the way to the hospital, because we had been drinking," she adds.
She says adrenaline dulled the pain. "My adrenaline was just going, it was such an insane feeling, and, I mean, I felt, like, some pain, but it wasn't, like, I don't know..."
She does not know why the attack happened.
"I'm still not sure why exactly the dog bit my nose, because if this dog was to be super, super aggressive to me, he would have killed me," she says, noting the dog was young: "I think he was only, like, a year old."
She wonders if a nose ring, or the alcohol on her breath ("we also were drinking, so I had alcohol in my breath") played a part.
Since that night she has visited "many different hospitals, many different surgeons," beginning a reconstruction process she calls "three years and counting."
Despite the trauma, the account ends with gratitude and determination: "I'm lucky to be alive," she repeats. She notes "yes, the dog is still alive."