Positivity: Police praise hero for saving toddler’s life

From Christchurch, New Zealand:

Monday, 6 August 2007

Christchurch police are describing the actions of a man who saved a toddler from the jaws of a staffordshire-cross dog and then gave her first aid as nothing short of heroic.

Two-year-old Aotea was playing at Jellie Park, in the suburb of Burnside, with three other children, all aged between four and nine when the dog began to maul her, about 11am.

Golf course superintendent Peter Macintosh was with his eight-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter at the park when he heard some screaming from the other side of the park.

” I then heard my daughter scream – a scream you never want to hear – and she just said ?run dad run’,” he said today.
Mr Macintosh sprinted 200m towards the noise, still unaware of what he was running towards when he saw the dog with Aotea in it’s mouth, shaking her “like a ragdoll”.

“I realised what type of dog it was – I jumped straight on top of it. It was too strong for me to praise it’s jaws open so I didn’t, I just went straight for the windpipe of the dog and tried to choke it.”

The dog’s neck was too thick for Mr Macintosh to get his hands around properly, so he dug his fingers into the dog’s windpipe in an effort to get it to drop the girl.

Mr Macintosh said he did not have a clue why he took that particular action.

“Obviously something I had seen or heard somewhere, but it eventually worked and the dog let her go and the sister of the wee girl pulled her out and took her up to a park bench while I held the dog down.”

The dog, a Staffordshire cross, is believed to have escaped from its nearby property when it attacked the girl.

Another person then arrived on the scene and took over holding the dog down while Mr Macintosh applied first aid to the toddler and comforted her until an ambulance arrived. …..

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