A US family is mourning the loss of their one-year-old baby boy after their dog attacked him in their backyard.
Baby Lennox was playing on a trampoline with his mother when the attack happened on Wednesday afternoon at the home on Fuller Ave in East Hartford, Connecticut, the family said.
The dog is a family dog that never acted aggressively in the past, they said.
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“If the dog would have been aggressive or anything like that, trust and believe he wouldn’t have been around the baby,” Lennox’s father Ricky Rohena said.
Neighbour Rohan Green heard screams and ran across the street to help. He said he wished he could have got there sooner.
“I tried to fight off two pit bulls and help the baby as much as I could,” Green said.
“One minute seemed like forever. (It was) a long battle.”
Lennox was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“He was on the ambulance alive,” Lennox’s aunt Crystal Rod said.
“He fought and he tried to stay with us as long as he could.”
Police describe the dog as a large mixed-breed dog. A second dog was also taken from the property.
Both dogs are now at a nearby pound.
“I just didn’t get the chance to hold my baby at all,” Rohena said.
“I didn’t get the chance to see him.
“I was working. I wasn’t here.
“I came home, took the dogs out. I wasn’t expecting this to happen.
“I left the dogs outside. I should have never left them outside.”
Lennox’s mother Keyshla Torres, who is pregnant, was also injured in the attack.
“I witnessed it,” she said.
“(The dog) got onto the trampoline, then he grabbed the baby.”
Lennox had just turned one, and the family was preparing for a celebration that night.
“He was a happy baby,” Torres said.
“Every time he would hear his dad come home, hear his dad open the door, he would get happy. He was a daddy’s boy.”
The family asks for grace and compassion, as they said they’ve received many negative messages online.
“We just ask to please be mindful that we’re already dealing with the loss of an infant, an innocent angel,” Rod said.
“We were supposed to be celebrating his life. He turned one on March 9.
“But instead of celebrating his one-year birthday, we have to come together as a family and plan a burial service.
“We’re receiving so much public hate.
“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.
“This was the family dog. No one ever saw this coming.
“Those dogs were loved and Lennox was loved 17 times more than the dogs.”