Court

DOG MAULING SPECIAL REPORT:
Grandmother Breaks Down As She Recalls Dog Attack
Weds 4th July 2012 , Yellow Advertiser

THE GRANDMOTHER of a seven-year-old boy mauled by a Rottweiler broke down in tears as she recounted the incident in court.

Susan Cox told a judge she was teaching her grandson to use a bodyboard on Friday, August 5, 2011, when the animal struck.

She said: “The dog just bounded past me and leapt onto his back and sank its teeth into his back, and the weight of the dog just pushed him down into the water.

“I thought he was going to drown so I just grabbed hold of what I realise now was the collar and yanked as hard as I could, and the dog came out of the water it was still attached to his shoulder.”

She said the dog shook its head and dropped the boy into the water, then bit him twice in the left arm, pushing him underwater a second time.

She said: “It was all so sudden. I remember feeling absolutely terrified because the dog seemed to come out of nowhere.

“I just had to save him. I had to get the dog off. That was all I was thinking.”

She told the court her grandson was so traumatised that he couldn't speak.

She said: “He was just shaking, white as anything. He didn't make a sound.”

She told the judge: “Blood was pouring off of him. I couldn't easily distinguish exactly what the injuries were. It was just red blood flowing from the top of him.”

She said blood was 'dropping off of him like rain' and landing on rocks in two-inch wide splashes.

As Mrs Cox scrambled for her mobile phone, onlooker Anita Macer came to her aid.

Giving evidence last week, Mrs Macer said she sat the boy on her lap and tried to keep him calm.

Breaking down in tears, she described how the boy had complained that his back was stinging and she had thought it was because of the towel he was wrapped up in.

As she removed the towel, she saw he had 'terrible wounds'.

She told the judge, “It turned my stomach.”

Mrs Cox described to the judge how she saw the wounds properly for the first time after she called an ambulance.

She said: “I was really quite shocked because he had lots of slashes across his arm as though he'd been cut with a knife.”

Sobbing, she added: “I remember thinking it was my fault that it was like that because I pulled the dog. I'd made it worse.”

The cuts were so bad that the boy's muscle was exposed.

Judge Owen Davies QC assured Mrs Cox that her actions had been 'heroic' and had possibly saved her grandson from drowning.

The boy was taken to hospital and found to have up to 20 puncture wounds in his back.

His arms required 60 stitches.

He had to be anesthetised four times so his wounds could be irrigated and may need skin grafts in future.

He still has to have medical cream massaged into his scars every day and will have to be monitored until he is 18 to ensure the growth in his arm is not stunted.

Police said the injuries had taken a psychological toll as well, leaving the boy 'embarrassed' about changing for PE lessons and reticent about going outside to play.

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