BROKEN ARROW, Okla. -- A Broken Arrow woman is barely alive after a dog mauled her and almost ripped her arm off.
You won't see beneath the bandages.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, it's really true," Vicki Fritzer said.
But Fritzer has a vivid memory.
"I just remember flesh ripping," she said.
11 days ago, Fritzer slipped on a pile of leaves outside her house. Seconds later, a family member's dog pounced.
"He just kept ripping and chewing my arms and I put them up in like defense mode to protect my face," Fritzer said.
She crawled inside and screamed for help.
"My granddaughter heard me screaming and she came out there and got a knife and just started stabbing him, and it was because of her that I'm really alive today," Fritzer said. "She really saved my life."
Fritzer's 15-year-old granddaughter was the dog's next target, biting her on both arms. But she was able to rush through a fence to the neighbor's house.
"I just kind of rolled over and played like I was dead and he was preoccupied with the blood in the laundry room and then they got me out of there," Fritzer said.
The grandmother was rushed to the hospital and into emergency surgery.
"I lost a lot of blood and you could just kind of feel the life going out from underneath you," Fritzer said.
Tuesday flowers and balloons fill the Saint Francis hospital room.
"I don't know what would have caused him to do that," the grandmother said. "It was just so vicious."
Fritzer is learning a lot from her physicians.
"Doctors have been sharing stories with me of all kinds of breeds that have just turned on family members for no reason," she said.
A skin graft is expected Monday, until then Fritzer turns to proverbs and believes having a merry heart is like medicine.
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