MIAMI GARDENS, FLA. (WSVN) - A 7-year-old girl faces a long road to recovery after she was attacked by a dog in a Miami Gardens neighborhood.
7News cameras K’lonie Huges as she watched children playing outside her home on Friday evening, barely able to move on her own.
“Before we brought her out, we asked her, did she want to come outside? She said, ‘Yeah,'” said her grandmother, Carletha Rodgers, “and she’s looking at all her neighborhood friends, and I know she wants to get up and play, but she’s so much in pain that she can’t, so the only thing she can do is watch.”
Earlier in the day, Huges spoke with 7News after she was released from Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital, where she spent nearly two days.
She described the moment when she realized she was in danger.
“I saw a dog run past me, and then the dog came inside the gate,” she said.
Surveillance video captured Huges as she tried to get away from the canine along the 3800 block of Northwest 207th Street Road, Wednesday evening.
She slipped past the neighbor’s gate, but the dog was right behind her.
“I tried to run, but I looked behind me, and the dog was chasing me,” she said, “and then that’s when the dog bit me.”
A blue SUV blocked the camera’s view when, authorities said, the dog attacked the girl.
“I’m so heartbroken because this could have been a deadly situation,” said Rodgers.
The bites on Huges were serious enough that paramedics airlifted her to the hospital.
“She has injuries to her thigh, and she has injuries to her leg,” said Rodgers.
Her left thigh bandaged, Huges now needs crutches to get around.
“They gave me some pain medicine, and I got stitches,” she said.
The dog’s owner, Norberto Pass, surrendered his pet to Miami-Dade Animal Services on Thursday. He said he feels terrible about what happened.
“Of course it affects me. I have high blood pressure. I’m a father, how will I be OK with this? It’s not OK,” he said.
The dog did not live at the house where the attack happened.
Rodgers said her granddaughter is now afraid to go outside.
“She’s not willing to go outside anymore. She may say – although she knows the dog is gone, she’s still terrified,” she said.
Rodgers said the scars in Huges’ memory may take a little longer to heal.
“She’s going to need a lot of therapy, because this is a mental situation just as well as a physical situation, so she has a long recovery to go,” she said.
MDAS officials said they have opened a dangerous dog investigation.
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