RCMP Watch

CARY CASTAGNA, SUN MEDIA
SHERWOOD PARK — A senior citizen who suffered deep wounds in his lower leg when an RCMP dog mistakenly sunk its teeth into him at his home yesterday says he’s not angry at Mounties.

But Eddie Jober, 69, has plenty of scorn for the drunk-driving suspect police were chasing through his backyard at the time.

“I’m angry at that kid,” the retiree told the Sun yesterday. “If I could get hold of him, I’d show him a thing or two, even at my age.”

Mounties later caught up with the suspect, but not before he sought refuge in the second-floor closet of a family’s home, terrorizing a mother and her baby.

The drama began about 7:30 a.m. yesterday, when a motorist called RCMP via cellphone to report an impaired driver travelling south on Highway 21 near Highway 16, said Const. Darren Anderson.

The concerned motorist tailed the vehicle until RCMP picked up the chase on Sherwood Drive, Anderson said.

Instead of stopping for police, however, the driver led them on a pursuit through residential streets before coming to a dead end on Raven Drive, Anderson said. A female passenger was arrested, but the driver ran from the area.

A police pooch and dog handler tracked the suspect to Jober’s backyard on Eagle Drive, where the resident opened a side door and pointed in the direction of the suspect.

But the canine, who was on an 18-foot leash, turned its attention to Jober, chomping on his left calf in the doorway to his home.

“The dog grabbed my leg and pulled me out of my house,” Jober recalled. “My leg was severed pretty deep. It happened so fast. Then the dog let go and they kept on going. I laid there on my driveway for awhile in a pool of blood.”

Paramedics took Jober to hospital, where he received close to 60 stitches to sew up a nearly eight-inch gash on one side of his leg and a three-inch wound on the other side.

“You’d think that someone took a knife and ripped his leg open,” said his wife, Liz, also 69. “I was expecting a little puncture wound, but no, it was amazing.”

Jober said his suspicions weren’t raised moments earlier when a young man rang their doorbell and apologetically asked if he could use the phone to call a cab.

Although the clean-cut man smelled of alcohol, he wasn’t at all threatening, the couple said.

The man waited just inside the Jobers’ home for a few minutes until abruptly fleeing after he apparently saw police.

Jober figures the police dog picked up the suspect’s scent in the doorway where he had been standing.

“How can you be angry at the police?” said Jober, who was on morphine and Tylenol 3s for excruciating pain, including a sore back. “For an old person like me, it was quite a day.”

Meanwhile, the suspect was tracked to a nearby residence on Jay Court, where he entered through an unlocked back door and hid in an upstairs closet. RCMP evacuated a terrified mother and her baby, and then arrested the suspect.

A 23-year-old Strathcona County man was facing numerous charges, including impaired driving and resisting arrest.