‘Afraid I was going to lose my son;’ 2-year-old boy recovering after being attacked by dog

DAYTON — A two-year-old boy is at Dayton Children’s Hospital after a family member’s pit bull attacked him.

News Center 7′s Mike Campbell spoke with the child’s mother about the entire family’s trauma and the good news they just received in the last 24 hours.

The attack happened on Sunday night, and the two years old’s mother drove to Dayton to catch up to the ambulance and then rode with her son to the hospital as they prepared to work on the little boy’s severe wounds.

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Christine Lee said she and her son’s father were painting their new house while his aunt babysat the two-year-old boy at a high-rise apartment complex in Dayton.

“That was the worst part of the whole ordeal, I couldn’t figure out what was going on,” Lee said.

Lee said her aunt and two visiting friends were struggling to pull the pit bull off her son and were unable to give her details.

The dog, who’d been around two-year-old Tristen Valentine many times before, ran out of a bedroom and attacked the child without warning.

It took three adults several agonizing minutes to pull the dog away.

“Stabbed him six times with a kitchen knife,” Lee said.

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Lee hopped in the ambulance with her son and at the hospital and saw his wounds for the first time.

“I almost fainted, I was at a loss for words,” she said.

Tristan has seven deep wounds on his left thigh, right to the bone, that all required multiple stitches. There are three more similar wounds on his right calf.

“I was, afraid I was going to lose my son, there was just so much blood that had been lost,” Lee said.

Doctors have worked non-stop on little Tristen and discovered he has no tendon, ligament or nerve damage.

The family had to put the pit bull down because of what happened and his injuries.

Tuesday afternoon, Lee walked around the corner to see him walking with his nurses, for the first time since the attack.

“I was on my knees on the floor, sobbing, I did not expect,” she said.

Tristen has a long road to recovery ahead of him, but his mom is just relieved he will see his next birthday next March.

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