A man traveling on a San Antonio-bound Delta Airlines flight out of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was attacked by another passenger’s emotional support dog.
“The gentleman’s face was completely bloody, blood in his eye, cheeks, nose, his mouth, his shirt was covered in blood,” witness Bridget Maddox-Peoples told Fox 5.
She said the crew immediately got assistance for the victim — identified in the police report as Marlin Termaine Jackson from Alabama — and he was taken to the hospital in “stable condition, but [with] severe injury to the face due to several dog bites,” according to documents cited by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The flight was delayed by the incident.
Ronald Kevin Mundy Jr., a member of the U.S. Marine Corps and resident of Mills River, North Carolina, said “the dog was issued to him for support.”
Airline staff escorted Mundy and his chocolate lab pointer from the plane and re-accommodated him on another flight after the dog was cleared by law enforcement, Delta said in a statement.
Flight crew told Fox News they saw Mundy cradling the dog at the gate area, weeping and repeatedly saying, “I know they’re going to put him down.”
Mundy was not charged in the incident and his dog was required to fly in a kennel during their later flight.
According to Delta’s website, the airline “complies with the Air Carrier Access Act by allowing customers traveling with emotional support animals or psychiatric service animals to travel without charge” if they provide necessary documentation and agree to specific conditions.
