Terrified boy screams "I'm going to die" as he's mauled by American bulldog

UNITED KINGDOM -- A terrified boy whose face was savaged by a dog told a neighbour who saved him: “I’m going to die.”

The boy of 13, thought to be called Luca, was rescued when the neighbour heard his screams and ran into the house armed with a shovel.

The hero hit the dog so the teenager could drag himself upstairs to safety at the home of American bulldog Patch’s woman owner Rachel.

Rachel said: “Every time Luca moved an inch, Patch attacked him again. Only by playing dead could he stop being bitten.”

Luca was seriously hurt and needed surgery on his face, shoulder, torso and hip at Leeds General Infirmary.

The neighbour, 42, said: “I’ll never forget the lad’s last words to me: ‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die’. It’s a horrible thing to see and hear.”

Rachel said she was given the unwanted dog two days earlier.

Police, who shot it dead in Great Horton, Bradford, are investigating.

(Daily Mirror - Aug 19 2013)