My dear grandfather, a wonderful man,
Always believed in me, knew that I can.
Wisdom of life, openly shared,
Comforted me, when I was scared.

~anitapoems.com


I know from lessons learned and time shared with my own grandfathers how special the bond is, the undeniable connection that a child experiences with the man that 'walks on water' and wears a hat as a halo. 

Our next victim's story is from a grandfathers perspective.  It goes without mention that a pit bull attack affects an entire family, often an entire community.  But this story is especially heart wrenching as you read through the brutal description of the injuries, and the innocence of a little girl that believes her grandfather can fix all the problems and make bad monsters disappear!

Thank you Douglas for sharing with us and bringing awareness to the world unfamiliar with pit bull attacks!
My Reason for Speaking Out About Pit Bulls, Dangerous Dogs & the Danger They Pose To Us All

My name is Douglas, I live in Texas. My 2 year old granddaughter was seriously mauled by a pit bull on the evening of Sunday October 31st 2010. She was first taken to a local Hospital and they immediately called for care-flight to transport her to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

She underwent over 3 ½ hours in the OR to identify and treat all the wounds. She was seen and treated by oral-facial specialists and neuro-surgeons. The wounds were extremely bad including over a foot and half of lacerations open to the bone on her head, a fractured skull and a displaced bone fragment in her skull. The worst lacerations were on top of her head; one was 10 centimeters or about 4 inches long and opened to the bone. The attending surgeon could only state that she received hundreds and hundreds of stitches. All this from a 7 month old pit bull puppy.

This horrific attack has convinced me that we must act to take our children’s safety out of the hands of random strangers, irresponsible owners, even well meaning friends, neighbors, family members, shelters who release dangerous dogs back into our communities and those whose profit from the status quo where pit bulls are concerned. This is a serious and growing problem and we must address it now. We must stop the attacks and protect the public from these dangerous animals and their often equally dangerous owners who care nothing about our safety and welfare.

I am as guilty as anyone else of seeing the reports over the years and talking about how horrible they are, how irresponsible the owners must be and still doing nothing to help prevent these attacks. This incident has hit home and hit home very hard for me. No one should have to see a family member in this condition and especially not for something that could so easily be prevented with proper regulations and laws making the owners responsible and culpable both criminally and civilly.

The hardest thing I have ever done in my life was to stand in that emergency room looking down at my grand daughter, seeing her skull showing through the lacerations on her head and have her look up at me and say “papa my head hurts”. There was nothing I could do to help her at that moment and that is why I will fight until my last breathe to try to prevent this from happening to anyone else.

3 comments:

  1. your little Summer helped my little man with his healing process. It was such a blessing for him to know of another child, that he wasn't alone. She is luck to have a strong support system, and family who will not allow her to be another victim who just has to "take it"...you are incredible sir!!

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  2. Thank you Douglas for being there!

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  3. Isn't this just heartbreaking? Douglas is amazing, I am so incredibly thankful I've had the pleasure of meeting someone with such conviction.

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