'A long year back': A brutal dog attack took her leg but not the life she loves

The strange sounds echoed in the distance for several minutes before Heather Clark hiked past the country field and saw a woman fighting to stay alive.

A bloodied Eva Simons was fending off one mixed pit bull with her left arm and another with her right arm while a third dog was eating her leg.

The then 64-year-old was on a cycling trip in Vinton County, Ohio, when she got a flat tire. While she walked the bike back to her car on Shea Road, the three dogs made their way through a plywood barrier on their owner’s property and charged her. Simons held them off for a few minutes, but eventually, she was knocked to the ground and dragged into the field.

She knew she had to sacrifice one of her legs during the mauling in order to protect her torso and organs.

Clark rushed into the field with her walking stick and did what she could to distract the dogs.

Moments later she was joined by Anthony Masters and his partner, Joni Kesling, who were driving by and saw Simons surrounded by the dogs.

Masters used his truck to chase away the three dogs.

She didn't give up: 'I survived'

“I would have given up,” said Clark, 38, of New Lexington, Ohio. “But Eva didn't."

Simons' nightmare lasted for about 20 minutes.

Masters, 45, and Kesling, 49, both from Germantown, Ohio, wrapped what was left of Simons' legs with hoodies and a blanket.

In the frantic rush to the hospital on Oct. 29, 2022, the couple was shocked at Simons' calm and coherent demeanor.

The only thing she gave up on was ever riding a bike again.

“Yes, yes, yes you will ride again,” Masters said to Simons. “You will be riding again within a year.

He was right.

The dogs took Simons’ left leg and mangled her right leg, but they didn’t take her will to keep the life she had.

Not long before the attack Simons, now 65, had backpacked across Iceland, hiked the Inca Trail in Peru and rode her bike almost every day.

“I survived,” said Simons, who is originally from Poland and moved to Columbus in 1998. “I’m focused on celebrating life rather than letting what happened that day define who I am. But it’s been a long year back.”

Fighting to get her life back after the dog attack

The road back to that old life started with 33 days in either the OhioHealth Grant Medical Center or the Ohio Health Rehabilitation Hospital. There were seven blood transfusions and two major surgeries — one to amputate her left leg above the knee and one to completely reconstruct her right leg which had been torn open from repeated dog bites. An infection in the right leg during the hospital stay would require three more surgeries.

Her partner of 15 years, Bob Garrett, finally took Simons home in a wheelchair on Nov. 30, 2022.

A couple days later Garrett heard a rumbling noise in the basement.

Simons had figured out a way to scoot down the basement stairs on her bottom.

She told a stunned Garrett she had to do the laundry.

“Eva has something in her the rest of us don’t have,” Garrett said. “Nothing can stop her, and that includes those dogs.”

Getting back up, with the help of 'Helga'

She hasn't had nightmares reliving that attack. Nor has she had any formal counseling sessions.

But there were many long nights when Simons would wake up screaming with phantom limb pain. It’s pain someone feels in a body part they no longer have. The most effective relief has been acupuncture.

Her prosthetic leg, which Simons named “Helga,” arrived in late January. Soon, Simons was testing her limits. First, there was one loop around the block with crutches. Then she would use just one crutch. Then she used just a cane on her walk. Then she carried the cane just in case it was needed. Her first real hike since the attack was in March at Highbanks Metro Park in Lewis Center, Ohio, where she fell.

Garrett, 70, tried to help her up and was shooed away.

“This won’t be the only time I fall,” she told him. “I have to figure this out on my own.”

There were many benchmarks toward reclaiming her independence. In May, she traveled alone to visit her 40-year-old son, her daughter-in-law and two granddaughters, ages 2 and 4, in Woodland, California, near Sacramento.

Then she proved Masters' prediction to be true when she went for her first bike ride seven months after the attack. But the bike rides are now done on a recumbent bike, which is no picnic, especially when Simons has to pedal up a hill. It's too hard for Simons to balance herself in an upright position on a traditional bike.

There were hikes and rides and workouts all summer long thanks in large part to the Powell-based Adaptive Sports Connection organization that provided the equipment and volunteers to help Simons regain her active life.

1 million steps and counting

In early October, Simons took her one-millionth step on her prosthetic leg. A microprocessor inside the leg tracks all of her steps. She is now over 1.1 million and counting.

Simons retired in 2019 after a career in data processing and health care management, the last 21 years with the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio. So she has the time to hike or pedal wherever she wants.

“The million steps were important to me,” Simons said. “It was a way to prove to myself that a fake leg isn’t stopping me from doing what I want in life.”

Simons also inspires more people than she can count when they see her on a treadmill or lifting weights in the gym.

“She definitely turns heads with how hard she works,” said Todd Zody, a personal trainer who specializes in helping people over the age of 55 (precisionwellnesstraining.com) and works with Simons twice a week. “She is just so strong in every way.”

Reminders of the pit bull attack

What happened to her in that field a year ago doesn’t cross Simons' mind most days. It’s only when she gets asked by people how she lost her leg that forces her to think about it. When children ask, she simply tells them she got into a biking accident. When adults ask, she tells them she was attacked by three pit bulls and then watches their stunned, horrified expressions.

Simons has had a couple of moments where the terror of being torn apart by them came rushing back.

The first came, she said, with Garrett when they were hiking a trail in a small West Virginia town this past summer. They were walking back to their campsite when a pit bull appeared out of nowhere and stood staring at the couple about 200 feet away. Simons froze, paralyzed with fear for several minutes until Garrett coaxed the dog to wander away. Then, a half mile later, another dog came running, only this time it charged, Simons said. Garrett used his walking stick for protection, and no one was hurt.

The second moment that brought on post-traumatic stress came while Simons was walking around the lake at Antrim Park in Columbus, Ohio, in August. A pit-bull mix dog was roaming free and startled Simons when it appeared out of the bushes. The dog's owner argued that park rules allowed him to let the dog run free, Simons said, and wasn’t sympathetic to her, even after she told him why she had a prosthetic leg.

“I love dogs, I still love dogs,” Simons said. “I was around dogs in Poland, I used to own German shepherds, and I used to carry doggie treats around on walks. But I just have to be more cautious now.”

Not one word from the dogs’ owners

Two of the dogs who attacked Simons were put down immediately, and the third dog was put down a little later. The dogs' owners, who weren’t home at the time of the attack when the dogs escaped through the barrier, were each charged with three misdemeanor counts of failure to confine their dogs and three counts of failing to have a registered license for the dogs. Shaun Bartoe, the primary owner of the dogs, pleaded guilty to the charges last December and was ordered to pay $682 in fines and court costs.

Simons filed a civil lawsuit that is still ongoing, but she said she doesn’t expect to ever receive any money. If there is a settlement, the insurance company and her attorney would be paid first. And she said her intent for the legal action isn’t about money.

She has never heard from Bartoe or the other owner.

All she wants is some kind of remorse and apology.

“I want them to feel some sense of responsibility,” Simons said. “I am still missing a leg, and they just went on with their lives.”

Bond for life

Born from the nightmare was a bond between four people that will endure the rest of their lives.

Simons reunited with her three rescuers on the Oct. 29 anniversary of the attack at the Lake Hope Lodge just a few miles away from where she nearly lost her life. They didn't sit around and replay the gory details from that fateful day. Or relive how Simon almost died.

"We didn't talk much at all about what happened a year ago," Simons said. "We enjoyed each other's company as friends. But I'll never forget I wouldn't be here without their help."

Columbus City Council recently passed a resolution that commended Masters, Kesling and Clark for their heroic actions that saved Simons' life.

Masters was excited to remind Simons that he was right during that rush to the hospital.

She would not only pedal a bike again, but she would also reclaim a life she refused to let those dogs take.

“Toughest person I have ever met, bar none,” Masters said. “I wish I had gotten there sooner. But I’m glad we got there for her. We will always be here for her.”

You can reach Mike Wagner at mwagner@dispatch.com or on X @MikeWagner48

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Brutal pit bull attack took her leg but not the life she loves