Dog attack victim needs 5m of stitches

By AINSLEY THOMSON

Alex Josey sneaked away from a family gathering, crawled under a neighbour's fence and was playing quietly in his favourite spot under an orange tree when four dogs savagely mauled him.

The little boy, who had always loved dogs, was attacked from behind and dragged along the ground in the attack on Saturday night.

Alex underwent four hours of surgery and needed 5m of stitches in the deep wounds on his scalp and face.

Yesterday at Waikato Hospital, propped up in bed next to his mother, Arlene Hutton, the 2 1/2-year-old dozed and played silently with his toys.

Since the attack, the usually talkative child has barely said a word.

Ms Hutton, 18, told the Herald that her extended family were at her mother's house in Thames when they heard Alex's high-pitched screams.

She ran outside and saw her son's head in the jaws of a pitbull terrier, and another dog and two puppies tearing at his face and scalp.

"I started screaming. All I could see was blood," she said.

The rest of the family chased the dogs away. By the time they reached Alex, his body was limp and his skull was visible through the deep gashes in his head.

The child was rushed to Thames Hospital, but he was so badly hurt that an intensive-care retrieval team flew to Thames and took him to Waikato Hospital, where plastic surgeons were waiting.

Alex's grandmother Lynda Hart travelled in the helicopter with him. She said that by the time they arrived she was soaked in blood.

The worst of Alex's injuries were on the back of his head where the dogs ripped through his flesh to expose the bone.

He had smaller bites on his face and a large gash on his forehead where his head split open when he hit the ground. Ms Hutton said the wounds on Alex's face should leave minimal scarring, but he would probably need further operations on his skull and forehead.

Alex suffers from aniridia - he has no irises, and only partial eyesight. Ms Hutton said she was amazed that although Alex had wounds on his eyelids his eyes were not damaged.

Thames police have impounded an unregistered bitch, the mother of the two puppies.

Ms Hutton said a police officer told her a puppy could not be responsible for that type of injury, but she said Alex's surgeon remarked that the facial wounds were inflicted by puppies, not a fully grown dog.

Police spokeswoman Kris McGehan said more dogs might be impounded. The owners of the animals were being questioned and charges might be laid.

Ms Hutton said: "I want those dogs put down, and the book thrown at the owners."

The dogs had wandered on to the property where Alex was playing and did not belong to the neighbour, she said.

The family said there were often dogs wandering around the neighbourhood. They had been seen attacking cats and one had killed the family's guinea pig.

Thames Coromandel District Council spokesman John Howe said the area had continuing problems with unregistered, uncontrolled dogs.

The present bylaws were being reviewed under the Dog Control Amendment Act that was passed last November following the public outcry after the savage attack on Auckland girl Carolina Anderson.

Ms Hutton said she had been worried that Roxanne, the family's dog, would no longer be Alex's best friend.

But yesterday when she talked to him about Roxanne, Alex gave her a smile - the first since the attack.