https://imgur.com/a/SwKWN8s

Back at her cousin's home, Khoury was standing in the kitchen when she went to pet her cousin's dog, an 8-year-old blue nose pitbull named Diesel, who she had met many times before.

"I was like, 'You're such a good boy.' He literally sprung from a sitting position like onto my face," she recalls to PEOPLE in the latest issue. "I was standing, and he was sitting — he literally just sprung up. And he was literally, hanging — literally like arms, legs hanging off of my lip. And my first instinct was like, 'Oh my God, get on the ground with him, hold his head, go wherever he goes.' "

Whenever he pulled, she moved with him. "Finally, I felt a release. And then, something flew and hit the wall," she remembers.

[link to people.com (secure)]