WHEN Jessica Hatheier saw her five-year-old son emerge from the sand dunes at East Corrimal Beach looking shocked, she thought he must have fallen over.
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But something more serious had happened, she soon realised.
The flame-haired Ryder was limping and his leg was bleeding. He walked with the help of his cousin, Joey Harnett.
As he came closer, deep puncture wounds on his arm came into focus.
“Ryder’s been attacked by a dog!” Joey told her.
Joey, 7, would later describe how the off-leash dog had taken tiny Ryder by the shoulder and dragged him down two stairs, about 3.30pm Thursday, while in the company of an unknown man.
The brindle-coloured dog mauled the boy’s foot – nearly breaking it – and bit him again on his thigh/hip area before Joey stopped the attack by kicking the animal.
The family credits Joey with saving his cousin from more serious injuries.
“It wan’t until I was at the hospital and spoke to Joey properly,” Ms Hatheier said. “He told me how Ryder was trying to get the dog’s head off him. I just felt sick in the stomach.
“I was thankful that Joey was there and that [the dog] didn’t get Ryder’s throat. It could have killed him.”
Ryder emerged from the attack covered in bruises and puncture wounds requiring thorough flushing out, to guard against infection. He spent two days attached to a drip at Wollongong Hospital and requires regular dressing changes and ongoing pain relief.
The attack occurred as Ms Hatheier and her mother sat about 10 metres away, with the sand dunes blocking their line of sight to the boys, and the sound of children at the nearby playground drowning out the first of Ryder’s cries.
In the wake of the attack, Ms Hatheier is questioning the wisdom of placing an off-leash dog beach so close to children’s play area.
More so, she is calling on the dog’s owner to make contact with authorities.
“I like dogs, but certainly that dog shouldn’t be allowed out, let alone off a lead when there’s lots of children out there unsupervised.”
“Initially I thought the owner may not have known the attack occurred, but Ryder had no shirt on and … the blood was down to his toes. Joey was saying ‘he attacked Ryder’.
“For someone to know that and then leave – I’m shocked. He saw Ryder bleeding … but he walked away.”
The attack has been reported to Wollongong Police.
A strong and silent type, Ryder will not speak about his experience.
He was hesitant to play with his own dog, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross called Mulisha, but their relationship soon returned to normal.
After being shown photographs, Joey believes the offending dog was also a Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross.
He told the Mercury the offending dog gave a growl shortly before it struck. “I thought I should save [Ryder],” he said. “I’m not scared of dogs.”
