TULSA, Okla. - A family sitting down to dinner had to call police and an ambulance after a man allegedly bit off the nose of his girlfriend, authorities said.

Jody Bennett came out of a back room of a north Tulsa residence on Thursday with a napkin over her face and said her boyfriend, identified as Greg Hill, had bitten her nose.

Medics responding to the house saw that Bennett's nose had been severed and called police.

"We looked around and tried to find a nose but couldn't find it," Cpl. Larry Edwards, a police spokesman, said. "I think he swallowed it."

An ambulance took Bennett, 37, to a local hospital where police talked to emergency room personnel about pumping Hill's stomach to see if the nose was inside, police Cpl. Shane Tuell said.

"They said, given the acid in the stomach, that it would be a futile effort to try and do that," Tuell said.

The nose is made primarily of cartilage and other soft tissues that stomach acid can dissolve quickly.

The couple live in California, and the other people at the house didn't know what led to the assault, Tuell said.

Officers used pepper spray on Hill, 45, after tussling with him as they tried to take him into the custody, Edwards said.

Hill denied biting Bennett's nose, police said.

He was booked into the Tulsa Jail on complaints of aggravated assault and battery, resisting arrest and destroying evidence.

Bennett could receive help from domestic violence groups to recover from her injury if she cooperates with Hill's prosecution should a criminal charge be filed, Tuell said.