Over the course of what was then 28 years with the U.S. Postal Service, letter carrier Rungphet Bodnar had dealt with her share of dogs — she’d been bitten herself on occasion — but she hadn’t encountered this before.
As she drove her route through Flint in April, passing a spot where a school bus had just let off children, she saw a dog, a pit bull, she said, with its jaws clamped on a young girl’s leg and dragging her across a lawn, as a woman Bodnar knew vainly tried to help. Children were screaming, the dog wouldn’t let go.
What happened next may have helped save a young girl’s life and led to Bodnar, 54, of Clio, being named one of the National Association of Letter Carrier’s Heroes of the Year, an award for which she and several others from around the country are being honored at a ceremony Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Bodnar spoke to the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday, recalling the event and how she reacted when she saw what was happening and pulled to a stop. “I grabbed my dog spray and started running toward the little girl,” she said.
