Paramedics who attended to the three-year-old boy mauled to death by dogs in the Free State over the weekend have been sent for counselling after the gruesome incident reportedly left them traumatised.
The toddler, Keketso Saule, was declared dead on the scene after he suffered severe head injuries from the attack by a neighbour’s pitbulls in Hennenman, a small town in the Lejeleputswa district, on Sunday.
The Free State Department of Health says its emergency medical services members who attended the incident “couldn’t hold back their tears”.
“They have as a result been afforded time off. They will be attending counselling today, Monday, 21 November 2022 with the Department of Health social workers who are deployed to Lejweleputswa,” provincial health spokesperson Mondli Mbambi said in a statement.
This is the second fatal dog attack to happen in the Free State within days after an eight-year-old boy, Olebogeng Mosime, was killed by a neighbour’s pitbull while playing in his family yard in Bloemfontein last Saturday.
The incidents have prompted the MEC for Health, Montseng Tsiu, to add her voice to the growing calls for this breed of dogs to be removed from communities.
“Each day we learn of yet another death whilst these dogs bring nothing but more sorrow to many homes who lose their loved ones to this vicious and blood-thirsty dog breed,” she said.
“It is possible that there’s many more unpublished and unaccounted deaths that may have been caused over time by this vicious dog breed.”
Tsiu has also appealed for the law to take its course in all incidents of attacks involving pitbulls. – Staff Reporter