NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. — A Pomeranian is dead, and his owner was injured after a dog attack in North Fort Myers Tuesday night.

“You wish you could turn back time and not have gone,” Lindsey Norton said. “He would’ve still been here.”

Norton and her dog, Ever, had just turned the corner onto Harbor View Drive Tuesday when a pit bull rushed them.

“It was attacking me to get to my dog. No one could stop it,” Norton said.

Now, neighbors are left worrying if it could happen again to their dogs or children.

“I’ve had calls all morning because people are afraid to walk. They’ve got kids here, grandkids here,” Randy Barchalk said.

In recounting the worst night of her life, Norton couldn’t help but cry.

“It really does feel like losing a family member,” Norton said in an exclusive interview.

Her nine-pound Pomeranian was stopping to sniff flowers when a dog across the street escaped through an open fence and attacked. A Lee County Domestic Animal Services report stated the gate was left open by lawn care workers.

Norton said the dog, Taco, took Ever in its mouth and tried to run away.

“I was able to get him in my arms again, but it was like as soon as I got him, the dog ripped him out again,” Norton recalled.

Neighbors rushed to help.

“There were 3-4 of us on that dog, I was kicking it. He was beating it with a shovel. She was wrestling the dog and yelling, let go of my dog, let go of my dog. Let go of my dog; let go of my dog. It was horrible,” Rose Barchalk said.

Norton was able to get Ever free of Taco’s grip several times. As she tried to get away, Taco kept coming after her and ripped her Pomeranian out of her hands.

“The meanness in that dog, that’s unheard of. I’ve never seen that. It was possessed or something,” Randy Barchalk said.

“Obviously, he was biting him in his midsection where his organs are but also shaking him really violently,” Norton cried.

Finally, Taco’s owner got the dog into a chokehold. Norton and Ever rushed to an emergency vet.

“I was just trying to pet him and hold him as close as possible,” Norton explained.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

“I could feel the tips of his ears getting cold and his toes,” she said.

He had died before making it to the vet’s office.

Lee County Domestic Animal Services did not take Taco from the North Fort Myers home. He is being quarantined at home, bringing a new concern to the neighborhood.

“It’s nerve-racking to even walk down the road with our kids,” Holly Cheslocky said, mother of three.

“When we talked to DAS, they told us they can’t do anything until there’s a second one. We’re not going to put a scoreboard up here and count how many times this dog bites before somebody else gets killed. It’s ridiculous. It needs to stop. It’s unacceptable,” Randy Barchalk stated.

“I’m not like an anti-pit bull person, but this was not a dog. This was a killer, and it was not going to stop until it killed the prey it saw as my dog, which is not fair,” Norton said.

Norton said her dog’s name came from the word forever. Ever was supposed to be her forever dog.

Taco’s owner did not want to go on camera today. People living in the North Fort Myers neighborhood didn’t know dogs even lived at that home.