Dog Bite at Ex-Flagler Beach Manager Campbell’s Property Sends Mail Carrier to Hospital

Jennifer Benson is a 49-year-old Flagler Beach resident and a contract carrier for the Post Office branch in her city. Her delivery route includes former City Manager Bruce Cambpell’s house at the south end of South Central Avenue, at the southeastern edge of the newly renovated Ocean Palm Golf Club.

Benson was making her delivery rounds Friday (June 3) when, just after 12:30 p.m., she dropped off a package at Campbell’s door. She rang the door bell, then walked back to her car. As she did so, Campbell opened the door to pick up the package. But a dog “charged out down the drive,” in Benson’s account of the incident to the Flagler Beach Police Department, and bit her on the left-back side of her left leg, knocking her down. “I got up and ran to my vehicle and closed the door.” The dog had also “grabbed” her right leg, Benson said.

Benson went to Florida Hospital Oceanside in Ormond Beach, where she got eight stitches, according to a Flagler Beach police report and was released.

The dog, “Rocket,” belongs to Lisa Campbell (formerly Katusin: she and Bruce Campbell were married in January). It’s a nearly 9-year-old part-Labrador Retriever, part Border Collie mix, Lisa Campbell said in a brief interview this evening, calling the dog a mutt. (She had confirmed the essentials of the incident to police as Benson had described them when police paid the Campbells a visit.)

The dog, Lisa Campbell said, had never attacked a human being before. “He definitely doiesn;t like other dogs, and he’s on a leash when I walk the dog,” Campbell said, stressing that she always walks Rocket, not Bruce. “He’s never attacked a person. We were very surprised, both of us.” The most Rocket would do is bark at people, she said.

Immediately after he attacked Benson, the Campbells tended to Benson’s injury and waited with her before her boyfriend arrived to help her to the hospital.

As normally happens after a dog bite, the incident was reported to an animal control officer, and the dog was placed under quarantine for 10 days: Rocky remains at the Campbell house, where the dog is restricted to the property, Campbell said. Bruce Campbell, who resigned in late December after five years as city manager, could not be reached.