KEY POINTS:
A golf course worker risked his life to save a toddler from the jaws of a staffordshire-cross dog as it shook her "like a rag doll".
Two-year-old Aotea Coxon was playing in Jellie Park in Christchurch with three other children when the dog attacked, savaging the little girl's face.
Yesterday she had several hours of facial surgery, and may lose the use of an eye.
She has lost several teeth, has a fractured jaw and required 290 stitches. Last night, she was in a stable condition.
The man who rescued her says she was like a doll in the dog's mouth, and probably would have died if someone had not intervened.
Golf course superintendent Peter Macintosh was with his 8-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter at the park when he heard screaming.
"I then heard my daughter scream and she said, 'Run, dad, run'," he said.
Mr Macintosh, 44, sprinted 200m towards the noise and found the dog with Aotea in its mouth.
"I realised what type of dog it was - I jumped straight on top of it.
"It was too strong for me to prise its jaws open so I just went straight for its windpipe and tried to choke it."
The dog's neck was too thick for Mr Macintosh to get his hands around, so he dug his fingers into its windpipe in an effort to get it to drop the girl.
"Someone was trying to pull the wee girl away from the dog. The dog was pulling in the opposite direction and trying to shake its head back and forth."
Mr Macintosh said he did not know why he took that particular action.
"It was obviously something I had seen or heard somewhere, but it eventually worked and the dog let her go and the sister of the wee girl pulled her out and took her up to a park bench while I held the dog down."
Others came to the aid of Aotea, as Mr Macintosh fought to restrain the dog.
When someone came to help hold it, he went to Aotea's aid.
"I was virtually holding the side of her face together with my hand. She was screaming, she was crying, she was yelling," he said.
Mr Macintosh applied first aid and comforted her until an ambulance arrived.
The dog's distraught owners said their pet's savagery was out of character.
The dog was destroyed yesterday.
Police are considering whether to charge the couple, but say they appear to be responsible dog owners.
The dog, named Jake, had escaped from a back yard where it was confined before the attack.
"I wouldn't wish this on anybody, especially being parents ourselves," said Jake's owner, Robert, who has an 18-month-old son Izaak with partner Renee.
"I really feel for the girl. I just really dread thinking about it."
Robert said he would not have kept Jake had it shown anything like this kind of aggression.
He and Renee hoped to be able to meet Aotea's family - "when they are ready" - to apologise personally.
Renee told the Herald that on the morning of the attack Jake had been sitting on her lap, licking her son's face.
Senior Sergeant Peter Stills, of Christchurch police, said he could not praise Mr Macintosh enough.
"I couldn't speak highly enough of what he's done," he said.
"He's done what we would ask any member of the public to do, but what so many people nowadays wouldn't do."
Mr Stills said Mr Macintosh's actions were "heroic". Aotea's injuries could have been far worse had he not intervened.
"Although I don't like to go down the 'what might have happened' path, potentially he might have saved this girl's life."
OTHER VICTIMS
July 2007
* Palmerston North preschooler Kenya Tripp, 4, is attacked by a pitbull tied to a fence near a kindergarten. She needs plastic surgery to her face.
April 2007
* Murupara woman Virginia Ohlson, 56, dies on the way to hospital after she is savaged by two dogs.
* A rottweiler inflicts serious facial injuries on Ursula Grein, 85, outside Birkenhead New World supermarket.
March 2007
* Wheelchair-bound Dawn Brocket, 75, has arm surgery after an attack by a dobermann near Hamilton.
August 2004
* Dunedin woman Carol Taylor, 39, is mauled to death by her bull mastiff.
January 2003
* Carolina Anderson, 7, is attacked by an american staffordshire terrier in an Auckland park.
