OLK COUNTY, Tenn. — A dog attacked and killed a man at a home in Polk County Sunday, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.  Sheriff Steve Ross says the dog, a pit bull, was owned by the man’s family, and identifies the victim as 32-year-old Rusty Shane Burris.

On Saturday, September 10th, deputies responded to a home on Swallows Drive where a man had been attacked by a dog and went unconscious.  “The dog had been aggressive before, and it was on the cable, but at some point during the night it broke the cable and came after Mr. Burris,” Sheriff Ross says.

When deputies arrived, PCSO says a man and woman were standing next to the home. They told them that the dog was secured inside a vehicle.

PCSO says deputies found Burris behind the house, next to the fence line. Burris had ‘severe injuries to his arms,’ the report says.

“He was defending himself from the dog, and that’s why he got so many bites on the arms,” Sheriff Ross says.  Once he was loaded into an ambulance, EMS told deputies that he had no pulse and had died from his injuries.

“We have the occasional dog bites, but this is a first for us, as far as someone actually dying from a dog bite. This was a very brutal attack,” Sheriff Ross says.
With consent from the family, a deputy on scene euthanized the dog.

“We contacted a few agencies that weren’t able to take it because of our county and such, and the family did not want the dog around, and we did not feel comfortable letting the dog go with anyone at that point,” Sheriff Ross says.  Sheriff Ross says it’s not always protocol to euthanize a dog on scene who attacks a human.  He says if circumstances allow it, they try to hand it over to an agency to euthanize it.