Eleven-year-old saves little sister from dog attack

Thursday, May 28, 1998 | 11:50 a.m.

"If he would have attacked me, I wouldn't really care because I would have been able to live through it more," Amanda said following the incident during a family camping trip at Topaz Lake over the Memorial Day weekend.

The dog, usually muzzled because it had nipped at people before, had just been fed when it bit Keira on the head.

"Keira walked by and something provoked him," Amanda said. "When I looked over at her, her feet were in the air and he had his paw on her chest and he had a hold of her head."

Amanda's parents cleaned up the small puncture wounds and scratches, and the grandfather shot and killed the dog. That prevented tests for rabies, so Keira is now going through the rabies vaccination process.

"In a fit of rage and anger, we wanted to kill it right away," Donna Gray, Amanda's mother, said. "In hindsight, we shouldn't have done that because now Keira has to go through all the shots."

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