3 Pit Bulls Maul Woman, 3-Year-Old Son, Both Hospitalized

A woman and her three-year-old son were hospitalized after they were attacked by three pit bulls in Vallejo, California, on Friday.

Vallejo police officer responded to a house after reports a mother and her child were attacked by dogs in their backyard. Officers arrived at the scene and saw the dogs attacking the woman and child. They managed to separate the dogs from the victims using pepper spray and physical force. The victims were then rushed to a nearby hospital. While the woman was bitten in her head and arm, the child suffered injuries “to his face, upper torso, and extremities.” Both the victims were reported to be stable Saturday.

In an email to the San Fransisco Chronicle, Vallejo police said the child was inside the home when his mother went to the garage to let the canines out. After a while, the woman noticed her son had followed her to the yard and at some point, the boy fell.

“Once the child fell down, the dogs attacked the child. The mother immediately attempted to rescue the child when she was also attacked after she fell to the ground,” police said.

The neighbors heard the screams and called the police.

Doris Hutcherson, a neighbor, said she and her husband were the first to hear the screams.

"They were trying to pull the baby away from her. And it seemed like she was trying to protect her baby with her body,” she said, ABC 7 reported.

Hutcherson’s husband Steve said he then tried to distract the dogs using his golf club.

"I kept beating on a trash can so I could distract their attention from the other two," he said, adding that they immediately called 911 and that police arrived within minutes.

"By the time they got here, the dogs had dragged her to the other side of the fence," Hutcherson said.

Animal Control Officer Stephanie Wheeler said the dogs were taken by Solano County Animal Control and were in quarantine.

She said the dogs belonged to a relative of the victims and that the owner would be given the options to either surrender the dogs to Animal Control, or to take them back under strict conditions, the Mercury news reported.