A pit bull dog ripped off the arm of a 4-year-old Oklahoma boy while the toddler was trying to pet his puppies at his grandparents’ home, police said.
Pit bull dog rips arm off boy trying to pet his puppies in Oklahoma
Little Axel Foster lost his right arm after reaching inside a dog pen Friday night while being cared for by his paternal grandparents in Tecumseh.
Officers responding to the emergency found him waiting outside the house with his grandmother, with the limb completely missing below his shoulder.
“The boy’s arm was still in the pen. When the officers and animal control attempted to retrieve the arm, the dog became aggressive toward them,” said Tecumseh Police Chief JR Kidney.
One of the responding officers, Aaron McCormick, wrote in the police report that he “could see the arm inside the pen and one of the puppies was trying to bite it.”
In addition, police reported that one of the dogs was shot and killed as officers were trying to retrieve the arm.
Foster’s mother, Destiny McDow, said they “rushed to the hospital,” but surgery to reattach her son’s arm was unsuccessful. She had previously said in an online fundraiser that the boy was “fighting not only to keep his arm but also his life.”
Police and city officials are investigating whether the young boy was supervised at the time of the gruesome attack. If not, his grandparents, who were not identified, could face child neglect charges.
“I’m hoping it was simply an accident that the child was able to get to the playpen, but we’ll look at everything,” Kidney said.
The chief constable said he had witnessed “some pretty brutal dog bites” before “but never a complete amputation.”
“What kind of Christmas is this child going to have now? What kind of life, in general, is this child going to have now?” the Tecumseh police chief added.
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