Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060066
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
A German shepherd bit Helen St. Clair, the Republican candidate for commissioner of revenue, in the right calf Saturday morning as she left the front door of a Christiansburg home.
St. Clair said Tuesday she expects to miss work and campaigning for at least the remainder of this week as she rests and stays off her feet to let the seven puncture wounds heal.
The treasurer's office employee received the bite as she went to introduce herself to a man and a boy at a northern Christiansburg home. She handed the man some campaign literature, which he promised to pass on. Meanwhile, the dog emerged from the front door and went behind St. Clair.
"I try to be kind of brave with dogs because I know I have to be around them" while campaigning, she said.
The man in the house called the dog back inside and it headed back up the front steps. St. Clair said that as she turned and began to walk away the dog came back out of the front door and bit her.
She went to the emergency room, where she received three stitches. She got around on crutches for the next two days.
"I had been walking several hours a day," St. Clair said. "I'm not sure when I'll be back to being able to actually campaign the way I was."
St. Clair said she has been going door to door by herself all summer. She's just about finished in Christiansburg and has made many stops in Blacksburg and the unincorporated areas of the county. "I feel like I'm the one that wants the job, I'm the one that should knock on the door."
County Animal Control Officer Harvey Waddell said the dog's owner has been instructed to confine the dog at home for 10 days to make sure it's not infected with rabies. But, Waddell said, there would be no charges filed because the dog bite occurred on the owner's property, and St. Clair walked onto that property.
"Anytime you walk in somebody's yard and the dog bites you right there in the house, the dog is just protecting the property," Waddell said.
St. Clair had one consolation from the experience. The dog owner said she had his vote in her race against Democrat Nancy Miller.
"I don't want to get votes that way, though," St. Clair said. "I don't want to be campaigning in the emergency room."
by CNB