ILLINOIS -- A 10-year-old Peoria girl is in stable condition, according to police, after being mauled by a dog Thursday afternoon.
If it weren’t for the efforts of two nearby men working on a house, the girl’s injuries might have been much worse.
The victim, whose name was not released, was playing in the street near DuSable and Smith streets shortly after 3 p.m. when a pit bull running loose attacked.
 |
| Hero who helped rescue the little girl |
Terry Burnside Sr. and his son, Terry Burnside Jr., who were working on a nearby house, heard loud barking and snarling punctuated by a girl’s scream. They swiftly climbed down their ladders and scaled a fence to check on the noises.
Upon seeing the dog on top of the child, they used hammers and their bare hands to pull the girl away from the dog.
“It was shocking because it was a human underneath there,” Burnside Sr. said. “We thought it sounded like two dogs fighting.”
The victim was taken to Methodist Medical Center’s emergency room for treatment. Authorities said the girl sustained upper body injuries to her back, arms and head. Burnside Sr. provided a more graphic description, saying that the girl had open gashes on the top of her head.
Finding the pit bull in the attack’s aftermath was not an easy task for authorities. Burnside Sr. alerted arriving police officers that a woman, later identified as Rita S. Washington, had led the dog inside the residence at 1507 W. Smith St. without attempting to help the injured girl.
Witnesses said that Washington initially brought out a different dog when officers first questioned her. Police later found the pit bull within the house and placed Washington into custody to the cheers of a gathered crowd.
 |
| The owner dragged her dog inside this house and then lied to police, bringing out a different dog and blaming it for the attack |
Washington was arrested on an outstanding warrant for a traffic ticket and for obstructing police. She also was assessed two citations from the Peoria County Animal Protection Services — one for failure to inoculate and register the dog and another for animal running at large and creating a nuisance.
PCAPS took the pit bull away. No one was harmed in capturing the dog within the house.
(PJSTAR - June 27, 2013)
