A 7-year-old Gwinnett County boy was in a hospital recovering Friday after a pair of dogs attacked him on Christmas Eve.
Doctors expect Ethan Dowdy, of Lilburn, to be hospitalized up to a month and have continued reconstructive surgeries for two years, according to a fundraising page for Ethan's medical expenses.
Tracy Dowdy Fain heard her son, Ethan, screaming from his grandmother’s backyard during the attack, she told Channel 2 Action News.
Two dogs had pulled him over the fence separating the yard from the neighbor’s.
“I heard that scream,” Fain told Channel 2. “Mom knows that scream and I knew something was wrong.”
Ethan’s left ear was hanging off his head, but his right ear was completely gone.
The boy was rushed into surgery at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where he needed 300 stitches to close bite wounds on his head and upper body.
Doctors repaired the left ear and sewed the right ear into his belly to grow tissue in hopes of reattachment.
“He remembers everything,” Dowdy said.
Her son continues to have nightmares of the attack, where he said played dead to get the dogs to stop biting him.
The dogs, identified by Gwinnett County animal control officials as pit bulls, were destroyed and the owner received four citations, Channel 2 reported.
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