The six-year-old boy was attacked by a pack of dingoes after running up a sand dune on Fraser Island with his mother. Photo / Getty Images
The six-year-old boy was attacked by a pack of dingoes after running up a sand dune on Fraser Island with his mother. Photo / Getty Images
A young boy was attacked and mauled by a dingo at a popular tourist island off the coast of Queensland.
Six-year-old Michael Schipanski was hospitalised after the attack at the World Heritage-listed Fraser Island, which happened during a family trip, AFP reports.
"The family had finished swimming when the young boy said he wanted to race up a sand dune. Unfortunately, when he got to the top, there was a pack of four dingoes," RACQ LifeFlight Rescue spokesman Dan Leggat said in a statement.
"One of the dingoes attacked the boy and bit him on the leg."
The family had been staying at the Wongai campsite on the eastern side of the island. His father, Mark Schipanski ,said his son was running up a sand dune with his mother when the pack of dingoes spotted him and attacked.
""I heard him screaming, bone-chilling screams of terror and fear and pain, and turned around and saw him set upon and dragged down by this pack of dingoes. It was out-of-control, vicious, terrifying."
The attack left him with severe puncture wounds and bite marks on both legs, he said. Schipanski managed to pull his son away from the dogs within seconds and carry him away.
The boy was treated by paramedics and flown to a nearby Hervey Bay Hospital and is now in a stable condition.
Fraser is the world's largest sand island and is known for its dingo population.
In the past, authorities have warned visitors that dingoes are wild animals and should be kept away from.
Tourists are advised to keep children close by, not to run and not to feed the animals.
Dingo attacks on humans
It's not the first time dingoes have attacked on the island.
Fraser Island authorities have warned tourists to keep children away from dingoes. Photo / Getty Images
In 2001, a nine-year-old boy was killed by one of the dingoes on Fraser Island and his seven-year-old brother was also injured.
Last year, a dingo was euthanised after biting a woman and a child in two separate incidents.
In Australia, dingo attacks have been in the spotlight since 1980, when baby Azaria Chamberlain disappeared at Uluru during a camping trip. While her parents claimed she had been taken by a dingo, her mother Lindy was convicted of murder and her father, Michael, of being an accessory.
Their convictions were overturned in 1988, after a piece of the baby's clothing was found near a dingo lair.
In 2012, a landmark court ruling found a dingo did snatch Azaria from a tent.
