Topeka, Kansas. July 17, 2026. Audrey Austin was 24 weeks pregnant with twins when she walked through the Highland Park Townhomes in east Topeka. A fight broke out nearby involving other people. Two dogs were let outside. One of them attacked Audrey. Her first instinct was not to protect her face. It was to cover her stomach. She broke her pinky trying to shield her unborn children from the dog. A friend who was nearby stepped in. He suffered minor injuries pulling the dog off her. Her fiancé CJ later said that man may have saved her life. A Topeka police officer arrived and shot one of the dogs after it became aggressive toward him. The second was taken to animal control. Audrey called CJ while it was still happening. Come help me. I am bleeding. When CJ arrived, he described what he saw in four words. Her face was hanging off. She underwent a ten-hour reconstructive surgery on her face. Then almost four hours of surgery on her eye after she nearly lost her sight. Her twins, Kasai and Kamyiah, were born at 38 weeks. They are still in the NICU. Audrey believes the repeated surgeries and anesthesia placed additional strain on their arrival. She is at the hospital every morning. She spends the night. She has not stopped showing up for them. But the recovery outside that hospital room has been its own kind of hard. Strangers stare at her face everywhere she goes. She is tired of it. More surgeries are coming in December. Doctors are planning a procedure to reconstruct her nose using skin from her forehead. She has not been able to return to work. Audrey does not blame the dog. She loves dogs. She said it is how you raise them and how you train them. The dogs' owner has not been identified. The investigation remains open with the Topeka Police Department. Audrey Austin covered her stomach so her twins would survive. Both of them did. Now she is just trying to heal enough to bring them home. 🔗 in comments to read the full story. - @cdkidwell04