INTERLACHEN, Fla. – Five dogs fatally mauled a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service after her truck broke down along a road in north Florida, officials said.
The 61-year-old woman later died of injuries suffered in the attack, the postal service said in a statement Tuesday.
Putnam County Sheriff's deputies found the woman on the ground when they arrived at the scene in Interlachen Lake Estates on Sunday afternoon, sheriff's officials said in a Facebook post. They also found the dogs inside a fence at a nearby home.
A nearby resident told deputies they heard the woman screaming for help and saw five dogs attacking her. Several neighbors tried pulling the dogs off the woman and one shot a gun into the air to scare the dogs away, the report said.
Deputies started first aid on the woman, who was severely bleeding. They applied tourniquets until a rescue unit arrived and took the woman to a hospital, officials said. The woman was then flown to a trauma center in Gainesville.
The county's animal control unit took custody of the dogs.
An investigation is continuing.