A man who pulled over to help the victim of a vicious dog attack was accused by another motorist of hitting her with his car.
David Watson and his partner were driving when they spotted a 37-year-old jogger being "mauled" by three dogs at Whirinaki Beach - a male staffordshire bull terrier, male mastiff cross and a male rhodesian ridgeback cross, with no owner in sight.
It was an unexpected sight for 2.30pm on Saturday.
"My partner and I wondered what was going on and soon realised what was happening," he said. "The young girl was on the other side of the road so I drove up beside her ... I tooted the horn which startled the dogs who seemed to stop their mauling and slowly moved off."
It was at that point he turned the hazard lights on and went to her aid, covering her in a blanket.
"After assessing her wounds, which were not nice, [and] calming her down she decided she would move off the road - we assisted her and laid her down on the blanket, some other people covered her up with another blanket."
At that time another member of public pulled over and accused the helpful couple of having hit the injured jogger with their car.
"As I was moving the girl off the road some passerby who stopped abused my partner [saying] 'if you had not being going so fast you would not of hit her' and then said to me 'you should not be moving her after hitting her'.
"My partner and I were really upset to think we had stopped to help and some person turned up and said that."
An ambulance was called to transport the jogger to Hawke's Bay Hospital, but was then notified of another woman, believed to be in her 60s who was attacked by the same pack of dogs within 45 minutes when walking along the street, causing a laceration to her arm that required specialist surgery.
She was sent to Hutt Hospital and remained in a stable condition in the plastic surgery ward last night.
He was also "disappointed" to hear that not all of the dogs would be put down.
All three of the canines were being held in Hastings District Council's animal welfare centre after they allegedly attacked the two women in separate incidents.
They were all registered, one in Hastings, two in Napier.
One lived at an address in Whirinaki, the other two were visitors' dogs.
Two had been relinquished by their owners and will be destroyed. The owner of the third dog is in discussions with council.
Files on both attacks have been lodged with council's lawyers to determine the most appropriate course of action.