Boy Survives Vicious Dog Attack

http://wake.mync.com
By Kerry Hall, NBC17, 5 days ago
Updated: Mar. 25 8:30 pm

Raleigh, N.C. —Raleigh resident Sandra Knight describes it as something out of a nightmare.

Friday afternoon, she went to the front yard after hearing the children she was babysitting for yelling ‘Dogs!' That's when she saw two pit bulls viciously mauling 6-year-old Isaiah Hardy.

"They were pulling him from side to side as if he was a rag doll," Knight said.

She said she hit one of the dogs with a vacuum cleaner and chair to try to make the animal release the boy.

Isaiah suffered dozens of lacerations all over his body and spent the next three days in the hospital.

The man who was caring for the pit bulls, Anthony Whitfield of 816 Postell St., is charged with allowing dogs to run at large.

"The district attorney is involved and there could be some larger charges pending from this," said Laura Hourigan of the Raleigh Police Department.

Hourigan said Whitfield was not home when the dogs escaped from his yard around the corner from Knight's residence. One of the dogs had a chain around its neck.

Both dogs are now being held at the SPCA of Wake County under a ten-day quarantine. It has not yet been decided what will happen to the animals.

Knight wants to make sure they don't attack again.

"Now that it has happened, I want the dogs put to sleep," she said.

She also wants to keep the neighborhood children safe from other aggressive dogs she says live in the neighborhood.

"We've got to do something about these dogs," Knight said. "They're too close to our children and school."

 

Pit bulls maul Raleigh boy

Posted: Mar. 24 11:46 p.m.
Updated: Today at 7:13 a.m.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/4806582/

Raleigh, N.C. — A 6-year-old Raleigh boy is recovering after being attacked by two pit bulls. The dogs' caretaker was charged, but the boy's family says the punishment wasn't severe enough.

"They bit me everywhere," Isaiah Hardy said.

Isaiah suffered 42 lacerations in the attack. It happened while he was outside playing Friday in the 500 block of Coleman Street, police department spokesman Jim Sughrue said.

"I looked in my neighbor's yard and the two pit bulls were pulling him back and forth, back and forth," said Sandra Knight, Isaiah's babysitter. "I picked up a vacuum cleaner and I hit the dogs seven times before I could get him lose."

The two pit bulls had just escaped from a nearby backyard. The dog's caretaker, Anthony Whitfield, of 816 Postell St., was charged with allowing the dogs to run at large and will likely have to pay a fine.

"Pit bulls are sneaky," said Alexis Whitfield, brother of the dogs' caretaker.

"Some way, some how, the dogs got lose from the chain, but the chain was still attached to the dogs and they both jumped the fence and were running around the neighborhood," Alexis Whitfield said.

It was not the first time the dogs had broken free, according to neighbor Irene Hall.

"I was back here and one of them came over the fence and I said, 'If ever they get out, I am going to kill them,'" Hall said.

However, Isaiah's family and friends say more needs to be done.

"He needs to be fined. He needs to be prosecuted. He needs to pay for what happened to Isaiah," Knight said.

Isaiah spent three days in the hospital. Family members say they are worried about long lasting scars from the attack.

Anthony Whitfield says his sister owns the dogs, but she does not live at the home where the dogs are kept.

The dogs were being held Tuesday evening at the the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Wake County under a 10-day rabies quarantine. It was not known what would happen to the dogs once the 10 days were up.