3 pit bulls maul 6-year-old boy

Child’s injuries described by deputy as ‘head to toe’

EL DORADO -- A 6-year-old El Dorado boy was airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital after he was mauled by three pit bulls at his grandparents' home on Agnes Road on Wednesday.

Another grandmother said Thursday afternoon that her grandson underwent a five-hour surgery to address some of his injuries. She said he had improved Thursday, but he will still face several surgeries to repair other injuries all over his body.

Union County sheriff's Deputy Tommy Williams said in an incident report filed at 6:09 p.m. Wednesday that he was dispatched to Medical Center of South Arkansas in El Dorado in reference to the attack.

"As I viewed the child, he had several lacerations to his body, from head to toe," he reported.

Williams said he talked with the victim's grandmother who owned the dogs upon arrival at the medical center and noted that she said "she and her husband were outside while her grandson was running in the yard playing with her dogs, as he always does when he is at her residence."

The deputy said the grandmother had three pit bulls -- two that were about 8 months old and their adult mother. She told Williams that the adult pit bull was lying under a tree as the two puppies ran in the yard playing with her grandson.

When the grandmother heard the young boy scream, the adult pit bull got up and ran toward the screaming, according to the report. As the grandmother rounded the corner, she saw all the dogs attacking her grandson.

The grandparents could not get the dogs off the boy, the grandmother said, so her husband ran inside the house, grabbed a gun and shot it up in the air. The grandmother and her husband then rushed the child to the emergency room at Medical Center of South Arkansas.

The grandmother told the deputy that the dogs had never attacked anyone before.

In his report, Williams said animal control officer Charles Hartsell was at the scene of the attack when he arrived and that Hartsell "advised that he would be going to pick the dogs up and make contact with Goodwin Animal Clinic to verify shot records" on Thursday morning.

Hartsell said Thursday that the dogs were euthanized at the family's request.

State Desk on 03/28/2015

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