Speaking exclusively to The Sun, mum Stacey Drury, 22, and dad Anthony Guess, 25, relived the Diamond Jubilee weekend horror which left their son without a nose, ear and bone above and below one eye.
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| Keiron's face shows the horrific scars of his lifesaving operation |
The photo is testimony to the incredible skill of the surgeons — but shows the urgent need to change our out of date dog laws.
Police were unable to bring charges because the dog was in the owner’s private garden.
Keiron’s parents now want to help bring about a change of legislation and are backing our campaign which, since its launch last week, has attracted 8,159 signatures.
Stacey said: “You don’t see a child looking like Keiron because they don’t normally survive an attack like that. Doctors gave him just a 50/50 chance of survival. It’s nothing short of a miracle that he is here.”
The family’s world turned into a “scene from a horror movie” on Sunday, June 3 when Stacey, Anthony and their two children Mackenzie, four, and Keiron returned home after a fun day at their local park had been cancelled due to bad weather.
Anthony’s dad Dave Guess, 49, was working on the couple’s bathroom at their two-bedroom terrace home in Swindon, Wilts.
Stacey, who had just found out she was pregnant, recalled: “We’d only been back ten minutes and decided to go to the chippy for our supper.
“Dave had walked ahead to get some tools from his van and Mackenzie and Keiron followed. Seconds later, we could not see Keiron.”
Scaffolder Anthony said: “We panicked. I ran down the alley by the house but he wasn’t there.”
Stacey hurried up the road with Mackenzie thinking that Keiron had wandered off to see his gran, who lives nearby.
But Anthony said: “A neighbour ran out screaming, ‘A dog’s got him!’.”
At that moment, Dave came across the lad being mauled to within an inch of his life in a back garden.
Its owner was desperately trying to hold the toddler up, but still the dog was jumping up and biting him.
Dave said: “The dog was ripping Keiron to pieces. He was a mess. I grabbed Keiron off him and ran back out into the alleyway.”
Despite being bitten himself, Dave managed to escape. Anthony said: “I saw Dad with Keiron cradled in his arms but it didn’t look like Keiron. I could see bubbles of red coming out of his face. His nose had gone. His face was ripped to shreds. It was like someone had used a sledgehammer. It was like a horror film.”
Stacey said: “All I could see was blood. I remember just collapsing. I thought Keiron was dead.”
Within minutes paramedics arrived along with an on-call doctor, several police cars and a helicopter ambulance which landed in the nearby park.
Anthony said: “Stacey was on the floor crying. Some bloke was trying to comfort me. I was just in tears.”
Stacey’s mum Michaela Drury, 40, said: “I raced round and saw her on the ground trying to be sick. I went to see Keiron in the ambulance. They asked me to hold the oxygen mask near his little face, but not to put it on his face. The paramedics said they were losing him.”
A man found Keiron’s ear and took it to paramedics in a handkerchief. The helicopter flew Keiron to Bristol’s Frenchay Hospital, while Anthony and Stacey went in a police car.
They arrived to find more than a dozen medics surrounding their son.
The devastated couple were told it could be the last time they saw him alive, and were allowed to say a brief farewell before his surgery.
Stacey said: “They told us we had ten seconds to kiss him and say goodbye. I couldn’t kiss his face, it wasn’t there, so I kissed his stomach and told him, ‘Mummy loves you’.
“The surgeon later told us Keiron had the worst facial injuries he had dealt with in his 30-year career.”
For the next ten hours surgeons worked on the little lad — to save his life and reconstruct his face. He needed a transfusion of two pints of blood and Stacey said: “It felt like a lifetime. The doctors kept coming out, asking permission to do certain operations.
“We had to sign consent form after consent form. The bone had gone from around the top and the bottom of his eye. His nose was gone. They put metal plates in it and had to amputate his ear. He had bite marks down to his skull.”
She said Keiron was bitten so ferociously on his leg that doctors feared the dog’s teeth fractured the bone. This wasn’t the case, although skin from his leg was used to replace a chunk ripped from his head.
The parents were told it was likely Keiron would be blinded. Eventually he was taken to intensive care and put into a medically-induced coma to give him a better chance to recover. The next day he was transferred to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.
Stacey said: “His face was like a balloon. On his head were staples everywhere. I didn’t recognise him.”
Keiron was “critical” for five days and his parents barely left his bedside as he underwent further ops.
Meanwhile Jonathan King, son of dog owner Garfield King, had an angry clash with Anthony’s dad Dave.
Anthony said: “We heard the owner had signed a consent form and that the dog had been put down. At the time it was all we needed to know.”
A week after the attack, Keiron was slowly brought round.
Anthony said: “That was the best moment of my life. We weren’t sure how much he would be able to see until my dad visited and he shouted out, ‘Grampie!’. At least he had some vision. It was a relief.”
Keiron was finally discharged ten days ago. He and brother Mackenzie were too traumatised to go home so the family have moved in with Michaela and her husband while they are waiting to be rehoused.
Stacey said: “Keiron’s on the road to recovery but he’s changed.
“He used to be happy and smiley, now he has terrible nightmares.
“He saw a dog the other day and was petrified and said, ‘Dog bite, dog bite!’.”
But Anthony and Stacey thanked surgeons for their “amazing job” saying: “It’s nothing short of a miracle.”
Our campaign
KEIRON’S shocked parents were told that no one could be held legally responsible for the horror.
The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 allows for owners to be prosecuted only if the animal is out of control in public or one of four exempt breeds.
The Sun’s Safer Dogs Campaign urges Ministers to: Make EVERY owner liable for their dog; MICROCHIP all dogs; have a UK REGISTRATION system; give dog WARDENS power to warn those mistreating a dog.
(Sun UK - July 1, 2012)
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