Australia: Gabriel Swan's skull exposed in Mastiff attack at Chipping Norton home

AUSTRALIA -- A FOUR-YEAR-OLD boy was last night recovering in hospital from horrific facial injuries after he was savaged by a neighbour's Bull Mastiff.

Gabriel Swan underwent emergency surgery for a deep bite that exposed his skull.

Shocked relatives, who feared the worst when they saw Gabriel lying in a pool of blood, said the youngster loved playing with the dog, named Bully.

The family was minding the dog for a neighbour who had gone interstate. "(Bully) would never harm anyone, or so we thought," Gabriel's older brother Sheighdon Hayes, 18, said yesterday.

Bully had followed Gabriel into the living room of the family's Chipping Norton home at 10.20pm on Friday when there was a yelp from the dog followed by a scream.

"There was blood everywhere, all over his face and shirt," Mr Hayes said.

"I feared the worst."

Bully was found standing over Gabriel.

"I instinctively grabbed the dog around the neck and threw it," Mr Hayes said.

"(Gabriel) was screaming at first (but) he is a tough kid."

Ambulance and police officers were called to the Lavington Ave home and last night Gabriel remained in a stable condition at Westmead Children's Hospital.

He has had plastic surgery on the injury to his face.

The bite appeared not to have caused any critical damage and tests showed Bully's tooth had missed Gabriel's eye by about a centimetre.

Police seized the dog, which remained in a pound while its owner was being contacted. Sergeant Greg Tidyman, the duty officer of Liverpool Police Station, said it was most likely a decision would be made within days to have Bully put down.

He said Gabriel was lucky to have avoided any life-threatening injuries, which was most likely sparked because the dog was tired of playing with the youngster.

"They've (cared for the dog) hundreds of times before and there's never been an issue," Sgt Tidyman said.

"They're shocked, given the dog's been there many times and they've never had problems with it in the past."

It is the second significant dog attack on a child in NSW in recent days.

A nine-month-old baby boy remains in hospital after he was bitten on the face by the family retriever.

The baby, who was being held on his mother's lap at their Wagga Wagga home when the dog attacked, was flown to Westmead with non-life threatening injuries on Wednesday night.

(Daily Telegraph - Oct 5, 2013)