Nancy Cherryl Burgess-Dismuke had been wrestling with her dogs outside a mobile home in South Carolina when neighbours noticed something was wrong — the animals had turned on their owner, authorities said.
Authorities said two of the dogs, both boxer-mixes, became "aggressive" with Burgess-Dismuke and started biting her arms while she was playing with them Thursday in Greenville, not far from the North Carolina border. Neighbours helped pull her away from the dogs and call paramedics, who applied tourniquets to her wounds and rushed her to a nearby hospital, authorities said.
Amber Greer, who called 911, told the Greenville News that, "It went from looking like they were really playing to them really eating her alive."
Burgess-Dismuke, 52, died of her injuries, police said.
It is unclear why the dogs mauled their owner.