‘I thought I was gonna die.’ Irmo teen recounts pit bulls’ attack at Harbison

A tree stump had never looked so good.

Connor McNeill, 19, had been out for a late afternoon solo jog in Harbison State Forest last week, in a free-flowing zone as he listened to music, when he suddenly spotted two pit bull-type dogs.

“To my left, I see two pit bulls running out of the forest toward me,” McNeill recalled in an interview with The State newspaper. He knew the danger those kinds of dogs might pose. “When I saw them, my heart dropped to my stomach.”

Before he reached the stump and made what could have been his last stand, McNeill engaged in a duel with the dogs that he described as large, weighing maybe 90 pounds each and “well-muscled and well-fed.”

“They started to encircle me, similar to how wolves hunt, one tried to go behind, one to the front, and I had to get in an athletic stance. One tried to jump on me, but I squatted, did a little fireman’s carry and threw it over my shoulder. Then I had to kick them off of me and punch them in their faces. I kept on looking around me seeing if there’s anything I could climb.”

Seeing no refuge, McNeill kept moving until across a meadow he glimpsed the stump. He had no weapons and was only wearing khaki shorts, Nike running shoes and a black T-shirt.

He jumped on the stump, and the dogs kept on attacking. “I was kicking them and punching them and and they almost got up there and I had to kick them off of me. I was on the stump for 30 minutes.”

Hitting the pit bulls was a surreal experience. “Their skulls are so dense. It’s almost like hitting a brick wall. You can hit them and then they’ll bounce back. They’re not fazed by it.”

During that time, he yelled for help. No one heard him in the 2,137-acre nature preserve, which has some 18 miles of jogging trails.

He called 911. No one answered. He reached his aunt, Megan McNeill, and his twin sister, Chloe McNeill, and told them to call 911, all the while contending with the dogs lunging at him. The dogs were barking nonstop — as loud as dogs can bark,” he said.

Find my iPhone saved his life

Fortunately, McNeill and Chloe had location-sharing on their cellphones, so she and his aunt were able to tell police where he was, all the while driving to Harbison to reach him.

“That was a crucial component of my life being saved,” McNeill said. “I had Find my iPhone on so they could access my location.”

After about 30 minutes, his sister and aunt showed up, ramming their car through two locked gates in the park to reach a site near McNeill. They couldn’t get through a third locked gate.

Exiting the car, McNeill’s sister ran down a hill toward him. The dogs started to move toward her. McNeill waved her back.

He had been nearing the end of his strength. “Not to be dramatic, but I genuinely like thought I was gonna die.”

“I yelled at the dogs and attracted them back to me,” McNeill said. “I didn’t want them to go after my sister.”

His sister waited on the hill, until his aunt arrived with two sticks. Then the two women, each holding a stick, walked down the hill. McNeill threw a rock at the dogs. His aunt told him to run down a road to where the police were so he could tell them where the women were.

Meanwhile, the dogs vanished, and the police arrived.

“She (Chloe) has a ticket for damaged state property, but it’s kind of my fault because I told her to break down the gates and come run the dogs over because I was going to die.”

A spokesman for the S.C. Forestry Commission, which issued the citation, said Thursday that a warning ticket was only issued to document the property damage. No charges, civil or otherwise, are being placed against Chloe McNeill, considering the circumstances, the spokesman said.

“We needed to write a warning ticket to basically document the fact that public property had been damaged,” spokesman Russell Hubright said. “She was very cooperative. We understand the situation, but we needed to do that for legal reasons.”

Dogs out to kill

“If it was a couple of minutes later, I would definitely not be here,” he said. “They were aiming for the neck.”

McNeill — who loves to exercise, stands 5-foot-11 and weighs 149 pounds — is in far better shape than most Americans.

He trains for Spartan Ultra races — grueling 32-mile, obstacle-strewn trail runs that can take 10 hours to complete. He lifts weights five times a week. All of this is to get him in shape to take a military gap year after graduating from Irmo High School in May. In November, McNeill will start basic training at the U.S. Army’s Fort Jackson, followed by five months at combat medic school in San Antonio before entering The Citadel later in 2026.

His fitness saved his life, he believes.

“If this was a child or someone out of shape or like an elderly person, they would be dead within seconds,” he said. “They were trying to hunt and pin you down.”

He thinks he’s very lucky.

He suffered no dog bites, unlike a Columbia-based federal prosecutor, Winston Holliday, who was ambushed at Harbison by what are believed to be the same two vicious dogs the day after the dogs attacked McNeill.

Holliday, 57, suffered serious bites on his arms and legs and required 17 stitches. He is undergoing a series of rabies shots. Many of his bites came on the back of his legs, where one dog got behind him.

The free-roaming dangerous dogs still have not been found. Because of the attacks, Harbison has been temporarily closed to the public since Monday at least until Tuesday, July 22. Officials are evaluating the situation.

McNeill says his sister and aunt showed up at just the right time.

“If it was a couple of minutes later, I definitely would not be here,” McNeill said. “Those dogs definitely wanted some blood.”

Traps for dogs

Victoria Clary, superintendent of Columbia Animal Services, said this week that traps have been put out in an effort to capture the attacking dogs. The traps are metal boxes with food inside that would attract dogs. When a canine enters, he will likely step on a pedal, triggering the trap’s closure.

“It would confine the animal safely and unharmed,” she said.

“As of around 9 a.m. this morning, the dogs have not been caught,” Clary said Wednesday.

Clary said that when the park reopens, “We would certainly encourage visitors to the park to be accompanied by somebody else.”

Visitors should also carry cellphones, she said, “but the safest thing is to have somebody with you.”

The Richland County Sheriff’s Department, Columbia police and the S.C. Forestry Commission are all involved in the search for the dangerous dogs.

According to Pawmetto Lifeline, a Columbia-based animal advocacy organization that works for a long-term solution for the overpopulation of large mixed breed dogs, seven people have been killed in South Carolina by large mix breed dogs since 2021 and 11 critically injured.

“When large breed dogs are not trained, socialized or properly managed, they can do extensive harm if they attack. The municipal shelters are overwhelmed with large breed mix dogs and they are being euthanized at the highest rate of any breed,” Pawmetto Lifeline CEO Denise Wilkinson said.

The group backs a legislative proposal, to be called Jayce’s Law, aimed at cutting down the overpopulation of large mix breed dogs.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the S.C. Forestry Commission’s response concerning the ticket given to Chloe McNeill, who broke through two locked gates at Harbison to save her brother’s life while he was being attacked by pit bull-type dogs.

This story was originally published July 16, 2025 at 2:11 PM.