DOG TOOK CHUNK OUT OF MY FACE

Ex-tennis star Sue Barker takes over from David Coleman as presenter of the Beeb's A Question Of Sport on Tuesday. Here Sue, 41, tells Steve Clark how a dog scarred her for life and how she feared she would lose the sight in her right eye...

"I'VE always been around dogs, so I wasn't afraid when this Afghan started growling at me.

"I just told it to shut up. But suddenly it flew up at me, biting me twice in the face.

"It took a big chunk out of my cheek and from under my eye. The bite mark went right through into the inside of my mouth and I had to have 27 stitches.

"To make matters worse I was on holiday in Spain and the dog hadn't had a rabies jab.

"I wasn't allowed to go home for ten days and was told that if I got a temperature I'd have to have treatment for rabies which meant having 25 needles inserted in my stomach.

"My face was a mess. Dog bites get tremendously poisoned and my whole face was really swollen. An even bigger worry was that I'd lost the sight in my right eye.

"I was 24 and still playing tennis. Sport means everything to you when you are young and tennis was my life.

"But fortunately my sight back came back after two days , although it was sore for a long time afterwards.

"I also had trouble with my tear ducts. When doctors tried to do something my good eye ended up weeping while the bad eye would dry up and vice versa.

"It wasn't agony but it was annoying.

"They also used the wrong type of gut to stitch up my face which left scarring. So two years later I had to have plastic surgery.

"It still isn't right. They said I should have more plastic surgery but I just can't be bothered now'.

"I've still got a bit of scarring but it's not so noticeable now because of the plastic surgery. All that's really left are the little holes from the stitch marks and there's some skin near my eye which they pieced back in which is looser than the other side.

"I can't play tennis any more now. It's not due to that Afghan, but all the injuries I had when I was playing.

"Worst of all are my shoulder and my elbow. They have both gone which means if I do play, I can't lift my arm above my head for three days and I'm in agony.

"These days I play golf, cycle and go to the gym. I still enjoy keeping fit.

"As a baby I wasn't very healthy. I got whooping cough and I'd go blue and stop breathing. My mother thought I'd die, yet I survived.

"I did have my appendix out at 15. I went to hospital in an ambulance, which was brilliant, as I hadn't been in one before. I asked them to put the sirens on and they did, which was great.

"These days my general health is really good - and I've come to realise that not all dogs are nasty

"My husband Lance and I have got three rottweillers and as far as I'm concerned they are just big lazy lumps."

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