Pit Bull Breaks Out Of Yard, Mauls Two Young Children Buckled In Minivan In Pennsylvania
Two young children, a 2-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy, were viciously attacked by a pit bull on Wednesday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. To make the entire situation even more horrific, both children were buckled into their car seats at the time of the attack.
According to neighbors who witnessed the violent attack, the pit bull managed to escape from its yard by breaking through a fence before attacking the children inside of a minivan parked on a residential street. The children’s mother immediately began trying to pull the rampaging pit bull off of her children, but was unable to stop the mauling. As Fox 13 Now reports, that’s when horrified neighbors rushed in to help.
Tom Grab, a neighbor and CEO of Ingrain Construction, attempted to help the distraught mother pull the pit bull off of her children. According to Grab, it took several attempts to get the dog off of the children, with rescue efforts being hindered by the rainy weather. He claims that he managed to pull the pit bull off of the injured kids for several seconds, but when it slipped out of his grasp, it went right back to mauling the children, primarily the 5-year-old boy, who suffered severe facial injuries in the attack.
According to Tom Grab, he simply wanted to get the pit bull off of the children “at all costs.”
“You just snap into ‘just try to get the dog off at all costs,’ so at that point I wasn’t thinking. [I] held it for like what felt like forever but it was like five seconds. It was raining, so it slipped right off. And then it got back on the kid again before the kid could even get up.”
We should be seriously thinking about vicious breeds of dogs living among people esp. kids. Owner should be severely and severally punished
— Shaheen Farooqi (@ShaheenFarooqi) June 21, 2017
Look I'm a pitbull advocate and all you immediately doing anything other than saying this is a tragedy for the children is ghastly.
— J.E. Gallagher (@JoeEGallagher) June 21, 2017
Eventually, and with the help of quick-thinking neighbors, the mother and her children were finally able to escape the mauling jaws of the rampaging pit bull and drive to Lancaster General Hospital. The extent of the children’s injuries was so great, however, that they later had to be transported to Hershey Medical Center.
Neighbors who witnessed the brutal attack say that the 5-year-old male victim was covered with blood, his face appearing to have been savaged off.
“I mean he didn’t really have a face when he got up. It was gone.”
The pit bull was eventually secured by its owner, who is said to be cooperating fully with police who have placed the animal in quarantine but so far not filed charges in the case.
Neighbors claim that most residents of the Pennsylvania neighborhood have dogs, and that nothing like Wednesday’s unthinkable attack has ever happened before.
“From little like Chihuahuas to pit bulls I mean everyone has a dog on this block. But most of the time they’re by themselves.”
The names of the victims of today’s pit bull attack have not been released, but the children are reportedly in serious but stable condition at Pennsylvania’s Hershey Medical Center. The full extent of their injuries has not been made public.
[Featured Image by Adya/Shutterstock]
