Thursday, April 19, 2018

New York: Girl, 7, mauled by Pit Bull that belongs to a "family member's friend"

NEW YORK -- The fate of a pit bull that attacked a 7-year-old girl in her Bellport home Wednesday will be decided after the Brookhaven Animal Shelter keeps it for 10 days, a town spokesman said.

According to Suffolk police the child was seriously injured after the dog attacked her shortly after 5 p.m. and had to be fended off with a shovel.

The girl’s mother and a man dog-sitting the male dog were also injured when they tried to stop the attack, police said.


Police said the victim was playing with the dog in her Bieselin Road home when she was bitten on her right arm, causing several lacerations.

When the mother tried to get the dog off her daughter, the dog bit the woman on her hand, police said.

Then the man hit the pit bull over the head with the shovel, police said, but he was bitten on the hand before the dog ran out to the yard.

The child, seriously wounded, and her mother, who had non-life-threatening injuries, were airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital, while the man was taken to a hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries to his hand, police said.

Police emergency service officers put the dog in a cage and the Brookhaven Town dog warden took it to the town animal shelter, police said.

No official information was available Thursday about the latest condition of the girl and the others injured.

Town spokesman Jack Krieger said the pit bull was being kept on a 10-day “bite hold” for safekeeping and that after that several options can be considered.

Krieger said that if the shelter decides the dog is “too violent” then it can decide to put the animal down or keep it.

If the dog is not determined to be a danger and the owner does not claim it, then the shelter has the same options of putting it down or keeping it, Krieger said.

Krieger said that if the owner wants the dog back after the 10 days but the shelter believes it’s still dangerous, then the town would have to make a court bid to put the animal down.

A person who answered the phone at the house Thursday identified himself as the owner’s son and would not give his name.

The dog belongs to “a family member’s friend,” he said. He would not reveal the names of the friend any of the injured.

When asked how the girl is doing, he said, “She’s projected to make a full recovery.”

(Newsday - April 12, 2018)

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