GEORGETOWN, OH (FOX19) - A 12-year-old boy was left with 200 stitches after being mauled by a neighbor's pit bull. The mother says it could have been prevented, but the Brown County dog warden says the dog thought she was protecting her owner.
Cooper Benjamin, 12, of Georgetown was attacked so severely on Thursday, he was flown to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center by a medical helicopter. The attack happened at his friend’s house on Green Acres Drive.
Cooper says he was playing in the yard of his friend’s house when the pit bull climbed underneath the fence and jumped on him.
“I was just saying to myself, 'Get this dog off you, anyway you can, do everything you can to get it off,'” Cooper said.
Cooper’s mother Nickie Benjamin, an EMT in Georgetown, is grateful that her friends helped treat her son.
Benjamin described the gruesome injury: “When they pulled the rag off, his lip had fallen down and was laying on his bottom lip, he had an open hole from his nose all the way around, and (his upper lip) was just laying open and you can see inside his mouth.”
Cooper now has 200 stitches on his face and wounds on his back and neck from the attack.
His mother said it should have never happened.
“The dog bit someone already," Benjamin said. "So the problem was there. The dog is still there. There's still kids running through the yard playing and my son just happened to be the one that got severely injured."
Benjamin wants to know why the dog was still in her neighbor’s possession after the alleged first attack and why it wasn’t taken into the custody of the Brown County Dog Warden the day her son was attacked.
The Brown County Dog Warden says due to an Ohio law procedure they must follow, the dog is currently being quarantined for 10 days with its owner. He says once the 10 days is up, the health department will have to sign on for the dog to be euthanized.
The warden says there are no other reports on file of attacks by this dog.
The dog recently had puppies and was in the kennel while the kids were playing outside, the warden says. Cooper was playfully chasing the child of the dog's owner with a stick when the dog escaped from the kennel and bit Cooper, the warden says.
The owner who does not want to be identified said she wished her dog was taken by the dog warden that night as well.
She said the dog warden told her to quarantine her dog for 10 days until she could make the decision whether or not to put down her dog.
The owner says she’s planning on putting her dog down, which is welcoming news for Cooper and his mother.
“Yeah, I want to go down there and I want to be able to play with my friends and not be able to be attacked when I'm just trying to play with my friends," Cooper said .
Cooper has another visit at Children’s Hospital soon and will see a plastic surgeon.
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