Posted on 08/02/2005 11:09:28 AM PDT by Chester A. Arthur
Ky. Girl Survives Losing Scalp In Pit Bull Attack
Child In Stable Condition; Scalp Found In Dog's Stomach
HODGENVILLE, Ky. -- A 4-year-old Kentucky girl is lucky to be alive after a gruesome attack by the family's pit bull.
The attack happened Monday night at the child's home in Hodgenville, in Larue County, Louisville television station WLKY reported.
As Emily Page Stinnett remains in stable condition at Louisville's Kosair Children's Hospital, Larue County Sheriff Bobby Shoffer struggles to remember an attack as gruesome as Monday's.
"It's the worst I've seen in my 17 years of law enforcement," he said.
Shoffer added that when he and his colleagues responded to the Stinnet's home, they saw a blood-spattered doghouse in the backyard, Miller reported. And the pit bull hadn't seemed to calm down since the attack. The deputies then took action.
"When we got at the scene, the child was in the backyard just a few feet from the dog," Shoffer said. "EMS was called, and they responded. The dog apparently was still aggressive and it wouldn't let EMS near the child, so the dog had to be put down."
Stinnett and another girl were swinging on the swingset with the pit bull chained and staked just 7 feet away, WLKY-TV reported.
Shoffer said something provoked the dog, and it snapped, pulling its stake as it lunged at the girl and biting her face just above the eyebrow.
"I guess you would say she was more or less scalped," Shoffer said. "She had some puncture wounds to her stomach."
According to Shoffer, the dog then dragged the little girl around the yard as she screamed for help. Her stepmother ran to Emily's aid, but the dog would not let her near the little girl. According to investigators, the stepmother took off in her car to get a neighbor to help rescue little the girl.
"These dogs are unpredictable," Shoffer said. "The least little thing ... the dog could be happy one minute, and the next minute they go absolutely crazy. Anybody that has young children (needs) to make sure the dog is chained or properly fenced in."
Once the girl was transported to Kosair, doctors there told the sheriff that child's hair and scalp had to be found and delivered or she would die. Shoffer said he had to cut the dog's stomach open to find the scalp, which was then rushed to the hospital, WLKY reported.
Family members told WLKY that the doctors reattached the majority of the scalp, but added that the girl still might face more surgeries.
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Pit bulls are loving, sweet dogs who only attack when they've been mistreated.
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Pit bulls are loving, sweet dogs who only attack when they've been mistreated.
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Repeat as necessary...
Owning a pit bull with children in the house is grounds for taking the kids away and putting them in foster care.
Stupid people should not raise kids.
1. How was the dog treated before hand, was it encouraged toward wild behavior.
2 Where was the owner of the dog.
3 Where was the owner of the children?
owner of the children"???? You must be a computer programmner.
Egads! With all the publicity about the weirdness gene of pitbulls, why would anyone have one, especially a person with children?
Some people claim Pit Bulls make great pets, but I dont want them anywhere near me. I have a gun for protection and it doesnt go off by itself. It doesnt eat, doesnt crap in the yard and doesnt require a sitter when I leave home. It also doesnt eat my kids or the neighbors.
I am a programmer but I don't think that's the issue. Clearly somebody is in possesion of the children, unless they were homless vagrants. And if they were in chewing range of a pitbull then it's hardly a given they were with their parents.
and...
Pit bulls are not naturally violent. They only learn the behavior from bad owners.
"owner" of the children? "possession" of the children? I thought you might be a programmer. You have kind of a cold logical way of saying things.
Well I'm sorry i didn't feel touchy and feely and use warm terms like parents for the folks who let their kids play 7 feet from the snapping jaws of a pitbull, a poorly tied pitbull at that.
Time for a "Dog Of Peace" ping...
"Her stepmother ran to Emily's aid, but the dog would not let her near the little girl. According to investigators, the stepmother took off in her car to get a neighbor to help rescue little the girl."
Am I reading this correctly? The stepmother left in a car while the dog is eating the little girl?
''doctors there told the sheriff that child's hair and scalp had to be found and delivered or she would die.''
Is this correct.
While wrestling in the yard one day with the neighbors, my kids were having a ball. Our boxer didn't realize the kids were playing, and protecting his own, barred his teeth at the neighbor kids. The dog was given to an older couple in the country that afternoon.
Bookmark to read defense of hairy alligators later.
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