A Taunton officer spotted a woman running down the street. She was being attacked by 6 dogs, police say.

A Taunton woman was attacked by six pit bulls while she was out walking her own dog Wednesday night, according to police. She sustained serious but nonlife-threatening injuries.Around 8:45 p.m., an officer on a routine patrol in the area of 187 Broadway saw the 51-year-old woman “running in the middle of the road,” Taunton police said in a release.

Here’s what police say happened next:

The officer observed six pit bulls following and then attacking the 51-year-old Taunton woman. He immediately pulled his cruiser over and got out to assist the woman. As he approached them, some of the dogs turned toward his direction as if they were going to attack him.

Because the dogs were next to and on top of the woman, the officer was unable to safely discharge his firearm at any of the dogs without potentially injuring the woman. Instead, the officer went back to his cruiser and activated the sirens and air horn to try and get the attention of the dogs.

The sirens distracted the dogs for enough time for the woman to get to her feet, allowing the officer and a good Samaritan to escort her into the officer’s cruiser.

The good Samaritan, a 53-year-old Raynham man, was also bitten by one of the dogs, according to police, and later drove himself to an area hospital with a leg injury.

“Some of the dogs attempted to jump through the open front driver’s side window of the cruiser to attack the officer. He was able to roll up the window to avoid being bitten,” police said in the release.

By this time, the dogs’ owner, a 36-year-old Taunton man, had come out of his house and was working to corral the dogs, which he eventually got back inside.

“The initial investigation indicates that the pit bulls’ owner opened his door and one of the dogs escaped,” police said in the release. “When he turned to retrieve the dog, the other dogs pushed through the door and immediately began attacking the woman.”

The woman was taken by ambulance to Rhode Island Hospital, and Taunton Animal Control seized all six dogs, which were quarantined “prior to a hearing with the owner to determine the outcome of the incident,” according to police. The incident remained under investigation Friday afternoon, police said.

Update: The woman, Rochelle Silva, told Boston 25 News from the hospital that her daughter’s dog, Ace, died at an animal hospital from injuries sustained in the incident.

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