A 10-year-old girl has been rushed to hospital after being viciously mauled by her family dog as horrified neighbours raced to her rescue.
Emergency services were called to the home in Berwick, 39km south-east of Melbourne’s centre, shortly after 8pm on Sunday night.
Neighbours made the phone call after hearing the young girl’s ‘hysterical’ screams.
A 10-year-old girl has been rushed to hospital after being viciously mauled by her family dog as horrified neighbours raced to her rescue (‘beware of the dog’ sign at the home)
‘We just heard the young girl screaming, it was obviously hysterical, it wasn’t normal, so we went down to have a look,’ one neighbour told Nine News.
‘I tried to open the door, when I opened the door the young girl was banging on the door and screaming, and the dog was trying to get through the door.’
When emergency services arrived on scene, the girl was treated for injuries to her leg, neck and groin.
She was taken to The Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition, where she remains on Monday morning.
‘I tried to open the door, when I opened the door the young girl was banging on the door and screaming, and the dog was trying to get through the door,’ a neighbour said
The girl and her seven-year-old sister were believed to be home alone at the time of the attack.
A neighbour told 3AW their parents were at the gym.
The family dog has been seized and impounded by the council, pending an investigation.
The attack comes just one day after a one-year-old girl was fatally mauled by her family’s Rottweiler in Inverell, northern New South Wales.
The girl and her seven-year-old sister were believed to be home alone at the time of the attack (family home in Berwick pictured)