UNITED KINGDOM -- This was the horrific scene as tiny Erfan Ali lay screaming in agony after being savaged by his next door neighbour’s dog.
The six-year-old had been in his own garden helping his mother bring in the washing when the beast – believed to have been a Rhodesian Ridgeback – leapt over the garden fence.
The animal, named Tyson, ripped at the youngster’s face tearing huge chunks from each cheek. Erfan’s right hand was also bitten in the attack.
He and his mother Monowara fled into the house. But Monowara and her 12-year-old daughter Masudah could not stop the dog – not a breed banned in the UK – forcing its way past the door.
The one-and-a-half-year old animal then carried on attacking Erfan in the kitchen until it was finally wrestled out of the house by the owner.
Erfan’s dad, Dilwar Ali, said: “The dog was really getting my boy badly, it bit the right and left cheeks and his left hand has been damaged as well.”
Quick-thinking Masudah dialled 999 and her brother was initially treated on the living room floor at the home in Gabalfa, Cardiff.
“The blood was everywhere,” said Dilwar.
The lad was raced to Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales before being taken for specialist treatment at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital.
The [boy] then spent five hours in surgery as doctors tried their best to mend the damage. He will need continual operations as he grows up with skin grafts from his leg and neck.
The 26-year-old owner claimed yesterday his pet “just flipped”.
He had been inside his terraced home in the bathroom at the time of the attack. He said: “I’m just feeling really bad, I’m just devastated over the situation.”
When cops visited his home he immediately agreed to have his “lovely dog” Tyson put down.
Recounting how he tried to stop the attack, he said: “I climbed over the fence because I heard screaming. I could see him in next door’s hallway.
“He was barking so I just quickly grabbed him. I didn’t know what had happened.
“I saw the little boy had blood on his face. You can imagine what I thought then – it was just panic.”
He insisted the dog had never attacked anyone before.
South Wales Police Inspector Emma Tyler said: “We went to a report of a dog bite at 6.55pm on Friday at Bacton Road, Gabalfa, Cardiff. The dog has now been destroyed.”
(Wales Online - Sept 4, 2011)
