HOME OF THE GOLDEN GATE
A 5-year-old girl was hospitalized after being attacked by a pack of dogs in Golden Gate Estates on Thursday night.
According to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a residence on Smith Road around 7:00 p.m. in response to a 911 caller who said a child had been seriously injured in a dog attack. The caller warned that the dogs would likely attack the deputies when they arrived.
When deputies arrived at the home, they saw six or seven dogs in the fenced yard, along with the young victim, sitting with blood on their stomachs. The woman was walking in the driveway and trying to chase the dogs out of the yard. Deputies ordered the woman to pick up the victim and carry her out of the yard, as the dogs did not show aggression towards her. The woman picked up the child and began to carry it until she began to lose control of the child and had to put it down.
Several dogs began circling the woman and the victim, one tried to maul the victim. One deputy started shooting the dogs with a pepper gun to keep them from getting to the girl. Another rushed into the yard, grabbed the girl and ran to the waiting medics.
The child’s injuries were extensive, with a large amount of tissue missing from the back of her right leg, exposing most of her femur. She also had bite wounds to her abdomen and lacerations to her back, among other injuries. The child was taken by ambulance to Physicians Regional Medical Center – Collier Boulevard, where she was then flown by medical helicopter to Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers and then to Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg.
Collier County Animal Control responded and initiated a report.
