WISCONSIN -- A little girl has been hospitalized for a week at Ministry Saint Clare’s Hospital in Weston after the pit bull dog she used to cuddle with attacked her on Dec. 9.
The pit bull that attacked 2 1/2-year-old Liliahna Pacheco had been with the Merrill girl’s family since Liliahna was 5 months old, her mother, Jan Pacheco, said during a Tuesday phone interview from her daughter’s hospital room.
“She was always such a loving dog,” Pacheco said.
The family inherited the dog in 2012 from Pacheco’s father and while the pit bull was aggressive toward other animals, it would wag its tail when it met new people.
“As far as the dog goes, they slept together,” said Jan Pacheco said.
Liliahna’s grandmother was caring for the child when the dog clamped its jaws down on the girl’s head and neck, said Merrill Police Capt. Corey Bennett. The dog eventually let go, leaving the girl with lacerations, Bennett said.
The family had no warning that the 9-year-old dog would attack Liliahna, who has since undergone two surgeries — one to clean out her wounds and a second because doctors thought she had an infection.
The attack was the second serious incident involving a central Wisconsin pit bull this year. In the first case a pit bull attacked a 56-year-old Wausau woman and killed her Chihuahua when the two were out for a walk, prompting her to call for a pit bull ban in the city. That attack sparked a local debate over the breed that spread to include both supporters and detractors from across the country.
Bennett said the police did not have any documented issues with that particular dog, which has since been euthanized.
“We don’t judge a situation based on the breed, we judge it based on the facts,” he said. “I think any dog is capable of biting somebody. … For us to single out one breed is pretty myopic.”
Pacheco does not think the dog’s breed was the issue, either. She said the main problem with any dog bite is the possibility of infection. She said that since her daughter was attacked she has received many Facebook messages from people saying they have been bitten by any number of breeds.
The family is hoping to leave the hospital in the next few days, and Liliahna’s parents are learning to clean her wound so they continue to help her recover when they return home. Liliahna will be on oral antibiotics for weeks and her mother did not know how long it will take her daughter to heal completely.
Pacheco said she does not think the family will have another dog of any kind for quite some time.
(Wausau Daily Herald - December 16, 2014)
No comments:
Post a Comment