A Tennessee mother said she was utterly blindsided when the pit bull she viewed as her ‘best friend’ mauled her so badly that she needed her leg amputated. 

Amanda Mears, 42, sustained the severe injuries while getting in the middle of a vicious encounter between two of her dogs on December 10. 

The single mom was getting ready to take her mixed Pit Bull-American Stafford, Dennis, out for a walk when her American Bully, Ralphie, escaped from a bedroom in her Murfreesboro home. 

Mears, a healthcare worker who often rescues dogs, noticed a few weeks ago that Dennis had been trying to attack Ralphie – who she has been fostering since July – so she had made a great effort to keep the two apart, she told the Daily Mail. 

When Ralphie rushed from the room, Mears quickly tried to separate the rivaling dogs – but Dennis was faster. 

In the blink of an eye, Mears said that Dennis lunged forward to attack. 

Fighting to keep Ralphie safe, Mears jumped between the canines, and that’s when Dennis turned his aggression on her. 

He sank his teeth into her leg and unrelentingly tore through her flesh as the shell-shocked mother told her 10-year-old son to hide in his room. 

She used her other leg to choke Dennis until he finally let go of her mangled limb. 

‘I was a bit scared, but I’ve broken up dog fights before, and I didn’t feel any pain because of the adrenaline,’ Mears told The Mirror. 

‘I ended up having to hook my right leg and my arms around him and choked him out to get him off me.’

Amid the chaos, Dennis also gnawed at her left hand and broke her right arm. Ralphie was unharmed. 

‘Ralphie saved his own life by not defending himself,’ Mears recalled to the outlet. ‘As there was no one to fight back, Dennis got bored and eventually let go.’ 

Mears described that her leg was ‘hanging on by a thread’ when emergency services arrived and took her to a Nashville hospital. 

However, since she had lost so much blood, the ambulance had to first stop at a closer hospital for a unit of blood.   

Once she arrived in Nashville and was stabilized, doctors broke the grim news that she would either have to lose her leg or undergo at least a dozen grueling surgeries to salvage it. 

‘I decided to have my leg amputated because to save my leg, I’d have had to have 12 more surgeries over the next two years and I would be in constant pain,’ she told the outlet. 

After spending a week at the hospital in recovery, Mears ultimately decided that it was best for Dennis to be put down. 

‘Dennis has always been the sweetest dog; he’d never been aggressive before,’ she said to The Mirror. 

‘I decided to have Dennis put down, which was hard. He was my best friend, and I raised him from two weeks old. It was a decision that hurt, but it was not a difficult decision.’ 

According to a GoFundMe created on Mears’ behalf, her situation was worsened by the fact that she recently lost her job after multiple years and lost her medical insurance. 

The dog-lover was hired by a new company, but was said to have had to take a pay cut. The fundraiser has raised more than $7,400 to help with expenses. 

In a GoFundMe update, Mears said she was discharged on December 17 and had racked up more than $25,000 in medical bills. 

Mears has shared bits of her recovery on Facebook, where she has documented her attempt to return to normalcy after the life-changing ordeal. 

‘First day back to work and it’s not fun,’ she wrote on December 29. ‘Sitting at a computer desk all day one-handed is a lot more brutal than I expected.’ 

Given the serious injuries to her left hand, it has been bound in a cast and she can hardly use it. 

Regarding her leg, which was removed below the knee, she is expected to be fitted for a prosthetic soon. 

The pain was unbearable at first, but it has since transformed into what Mears described as a simply bizarre sensation where she thinks she can feel her foot – despite it not being there.

Speaking with the Daily Mail, Mears said she has not let the traumatic incident weigh her down, and she is determined to fight for her recovery. 

She also asserted that she has no plans to stop taking in dogs and still adores the bully breeds. 

‘I’m not angry, I’m just sad at the entire situation,’ she said. ‘That it escalated like that and it required Dennis to be put down.’ 

‘However,’ she continued, ‘like anything in life, I can’t sit and dwell on the past. What has happened, happened, and I only have forward to look to.’