Sascha Wilson
A three-year-old boy is now hospitalised after being mauled by a dog at his Barrackpore home on Monday.
Recalling how she "jumped kick," the dog which had her son's face in his mouth, Cassyann Dass believes her quick action saved his life.
Her son Jalil who only celebrated his birthday on Saturday suffered two gaping wounds on his cheeks and has to undergo surgery.
In a brief telephone interview, Dass, 32, who has been with her son at the San Fernando General Hospital since Monday, recalled that he was sitting in the gallery of her Mussarapp North home around 2.20 pm on Sunday.
"When I open the door he took his ball and he went and sit down on the ground in gallery and I turn around to pick up my one-year-old to put him in the gallery because he is in a walker. By the time I do that, I just turn my back is because I hear my son bawling.
When I watch is because the whole dog mouth on his jaw. One on the left side of the face and the other on the right side of the face.
"All I could have done at the moment was run and jump and kick the dog to get him off of the child because I am five feet three (inches) tall and the dog reaching me about my chest. The dog is about 200 pounds."
She said the dog then rushed her. "I took things to pelt it down and rushed it, and it ran out of the yard. I took up my child and ran out of the road and flagged down somebody to carry me to the hospital."
A neighbour heard her cries for help and took them to the Lengua Health Facility and then an ambulance took them to the hospital. "It happened so quickly, it just took minutes.'She said the dog is owned by a businessman who lives at Mussarapp South. The mother said the owner of the dog told her it was an Akita mixed with a pot hound.
Describing the wounds to her son's face as "chops wounds," she said they are ten and six cms in width and one is at least five cms deep. Neighbours, she said, told her that the dog had previously attacked people, including a child. Dass believes that her son would have been killed if she did not act swiftly. She is calling for errant dog owners to face serious penalties.
"I need my justice. My son is three years old and his life just start and these people need to stand up as people they don't even have no humanity in them becuase they did not even come to the hospital to see what is wrong with the child. I want these homeowners who own these dogs to pay some kind of penalty, pay some kind of compensation," she added.
She also intends to seek legal action. Dass is in contact with the police but has not yet given an official statement.