A seven-year-old girl was injured when a pit bull bit her face on Thursday afternoon, police said. The child had been giving money to a homeless woman on an Upper West Side corner when the woman's dog attacked her.
An NYPD spokesperson said officers responded to a 911 call about a child being bitten and found a girl bleeding from the face at the southwest corner of Broadway and West 79th Street around 3:40 p.m. They learned that the mother had given her daughter a dollar to give a homeless woman—and as the girl was handing it to the woman, the dog "mauled" the girl, the spokesperson said.
According to West Side Rag, "The dog 'slammed her to the sidewalk' and both the mother and the homeless woman leaped up to try to pull the dog off, said T. Nardini, a longtime Upper West Side resident who witnessed the attack while he was walking his dogs on the block. Another man in a 'marine jacket' jumped in to pull the dog off the girl, and was finally able to pull the dog off, Nardini said."
Nardini told West Side Rag that "he has seen the woman on the corner for years, and has often been concerned about whether the woman has the dog under control."
The child, who had lacerations to the face, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and was in stable condition. Sources tell CBS 2 that the girl will "likely need extensive cosmetic surgery."
The dog was taken to Animal Care and Control, and the dog's owner was also interviewed, the police said.
