3 girls injured in dog attack
Sisters’ ordeal as vicious animals let loose on street
THREE girls were hospitalised yesterday after two vicious attack dogs were let loose in a housing estate.
The animals are believed to have been dumped at the entrance to Avila Park, off the Cappagh Road in Finglas, North Dublin, at around 1.30pm.
A female driver in a black car was seen letting them loose.
The dogs first attacked 12-year-old Katelynn Collins who attempted to climb a metal fence to escape.
Blood could be seen splattered on the footpath.
Michael Collins, who arrived to visit his mother, got out of his van to rescue the girl.
He said: “If I’d been 30 seconds later I think I’d be going to a funeral. It was like something from a horror movie.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. They were savage.”
The brave motorist used his phone to hit the dog and get it off traumatised Katelynn, who fell into Michael’s arms.
As he put her in his van out of harm’s way one of the dogs left the estate and the other attacked 12-year-old Dina Collins, who suffered three bites to her arm as she tried to protect herself.
She said: “The big dog came after me and went for my neck, so I put my hands up in the air and he went for my arm.
“When he let go he went for my leg. A man kicked the dog away.”
Dina needed a tetanus shot and antibiotics and her arm is in a sling but her mum Lisa said she was relieved it wasn’t worse.
She added: “There were small children all around there, it could have killed one of them.”
Katelynn’s 18-year-old sister Helen also suffered a deep bite to her leg and was being treated at Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown last night.
The younger girls were treated at Temple Street Children’s University Hospital.
Katelynn and Helen’s other sister Megan Stokes said: “Because we are Traveller people they think it’s OK to do this.”
One of the dogs was cornered in a garden and gardai and a warden removed it from the area.
The second animal was still on the loose yesterday evening in the Finglas area.