All the injured students were treated and released from Norman Regional Hospital, and the dogs were captured, Principal Leslie Schmitt said.
The aggressive dog was euthanized and its head sent to the state Health Department, police Capt. Tom Easley said.
The dog was identified by animal control officers as a Dogo Argentino, a large, white, muscular dog developed in Argentina primarily for big game hunting.
A second dog, a Great Pyrenees, was nipping at the Dogo Argentino “like it was trying to get him to stop biting the kids,” Schmitt said.
Schmitt said about 120 junior high school students were walking back to the school at 4001 36th Ave. NW about 9:45 a.m. after attending Mass at the nearby St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church when two dogs rounded a corner in the 3900 block of 36th NW and “just jumped into the middle of them.”
The scene was chaotic as adults tried to ward off the aggressive dog, Schmitt said.
“Complete strangers joined in to help us. People were stopping in cars and getting out to help. There were a lot of good Samaritans that day,” she said.
Schmitt said the owner of the two dogs has been located. The dogs apparently got out of a fenced yard and were running loose.
Easley said no formal report has been turned in, but the owner probably will be cited for dogs at large. The Great Pyrenees is being held at the Animal Welfare Center as a precaution, he said.
Schmitt said the junior high students have been walking back to school from Mass for the past 10 years “and nothing like this has ever happened.”
However, she said, in the future the students will be taken back to the school by bus. The younger schoolchildren already are returned to classes by bus, she said.
“It was very traumatic. I can't say enough good things about the people who jumped in to help us, and the first responders who were there in no time to help us,” Schmitt said.
(NewsOK.com - Nov 21, 2013)
No comments:
Post a Comment