The 18-month-old girl was in the living room when she suffered at least one puncture wound and several cuts from a pit bull’s teeth. The authorities said the girl lives with her family on Cleveland Street, in the Whispering Lakes community just north of Cheney Highway.
Paramedics received the emergency call at 5:44 p.m. Family members reported that the attack by the dog, which they've had for eight years, seemed unprovoked.
“The child was lying on the floor, and she was going over to take a video off the rack when the dog bit her,” said Kathy Beatson, interim director of Brevard County Animal Services & Enforcement.
“Nobody saw any interaction before that.”
Lt. Jeff Taylor of Brevard County Fire-Rescue said an ambulance took the child to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando because weather had grounded a medical helicopter.
“She was stable,” Taylor said. “She was awake and alert.”
The pit bull was placed in quarantine at the North Animal Care Center after its owner handed it over. Animal services Capt. Bob Brown said that at the end of the quarantine, the dog would be "humanely euthanized.”
Beatson said the dog didn’t have a current license tag, but that the owner, John McGrane, would not face disciplinary action.
"This was a severe bite," Beatson said. "It caused several lacerations. But there was more blood than actual injury."
(WKMG - Sept 20, 2011)
