Hero dad saves the life of two-year-old son being mauled by dogs

GEORGIA -- A heroic father saved his two-year-old son this weekend from two dogs that were chewing on his face after straying into the yard behind the family home.

Colton Brown’s rescue from the vicious beasts by dad James Hardegree likely saved the his life while mother watched in horror, screaming as a Rottweiler and a Labrador repeatedly chomped on his head.

Pictures posted by mother Lindsay Brown to Facebook how the horrifying extent of the injuries suffered by the tot, including a 4 and a half inch gash across the side of his face, puncture wounds and an ear mangled so bad doctors had to perform plastic surgery to fix it.

‘He had 4 1/2 inch gash in his face all the way to the bone. On this side, his ear, two deep puncture wounds,’ the mother told WSB.

Father James Hardegree told the station he locked Colton Brown in the house when he saw the two canines fighting over a dead animal they saw in the woods.

But the young boy knew how to open the door and was soon tangled at the waist in a seven-foot-long chain being dragged by the Rottweiler.

‘He came running back out, he got tangled up in the chain of the [Rottweiler], it all just happened so fast,’ he told WAGA. ‘He was just up under them, and they were fighting, and whether or not they meant to get him – they did.’

The dogs were mauling the young boy as Hardegree ran to his aid.

He ran outside and chased the dogs away, but it was too late to spare his son from serious injury, but his heroic actions may have saved the boy’s life.

The surgeon had to reattach Colton Brown’s left cheek and ear, the procedure took two hours, the family said.

‘Breaks my heart that instead of my baby having [an] awesome day, he is stuck in a hospital and is hurt badly, no child should go [through] this,’ the distraught mother wrote to Facebook.

Hardegree chased the dogs away, and animal control officers have not seen them since.

Officials are still hunting for both the dogs and their owner.

Doctors told Colton Brown’s parents that not finding the dogs within another day or two will force them to require the toddler to get a rabies shot.

It is not possible to determine if the dogs were infected with the deadly disease without first locating them.

The young boy has been released from the hospital, but Lindsay Brown told WAGA she is upset over the ordeal.

‘You shouldn't have a home and worry that something is going to happen to your child in your own backyard.’

(Daily Mail- May 27, 2014)