"We were just riding bikes," her father, Justin, remembers. "This man came walking down the street with the dog on a leash."
The family was just a short ways from their home near the intersection of Belle Oaks Drive East and Belle Oaks Drive West in Greenwood. Byrd says his daughter was still riding her bike further down the street when he stopped and greeted the man.
"I asked him, does the dog bite? And he says, only if I tell it too. That's when she (Kaylynne) came riding up and the dog went straight for her."
Within seconds, the Byrd's say the pit bull pounced on the child while she was still on her bike. Kaylynne remembers the attack. "He bit my ear and my daddy put me back on the bicycle and started going but then the dog got me again and got ahold of my foot."
Byrd was able to pry the pit off his daughter, then rushed back to the family home where they called an ambulance. Kaylynne now has a bad gash in her foot with 8 stitches. Doctors say the dog also took a small piece of her ear off. "I just cried when I saw it," her mom Erica says. "You could see part of it gone, and I just thought, she shouldn't have to go through that," she says tearfully.
Seven on your Side questioned the dog's owner, off camera, who said the dog had never been violent before.
When it comes to legal liability, though, that doesn't matter, according to Greenville attorney Hunter Morris, who specializes in personal injury. "In South Carolina, it's a one bite rule," says Morris. "It doesn't matter whether your dog has attacked somebody before or whether or not you knew about it, you're responsible for it."
Because of that, Morris says responsibility falls entirely on dog owners to protect other people, and themselves. "I would tell people to take any precaution they can, warn people that you have a dog, put up a fence, keep the dog indoors if you're not around," Morris says. "Because if the dog escaps and attacks somebody, you're going to be responsible for it." The only exception, he says, is if a victim goes to great lengths to provoke a dog.
In Byrd's case, the dog will be quarantined at the Greenwood Animal Shelter for 10 days, then it's up to law enforcement to decide whether it should be put down. "My fear is if they don't do something, what's going to stop it from doing this to somebody else," Erica asks.
(News Channel 7 - Jan 17, 2013)
