'I went to the bathroom and my boy is dead': Mother's frantic 911 call after her son, six, climbed over fence and was killed by neighbor's newly adopted pit bull
- Joshua Phillip Strother, six, died at the scene in North Carolina after being mauled by neighbor's one-year-old pit bull
- Joshua's mother called 911 saying she found her son covered in blood after losing sight of him for five to 10 minutes
- Deputies said the pit bull was so aggressive they had to shoot the pet dead
A pit bull mauled to death a six-year-old boy who had climbed over a fence to get into a neighbor's yard while his mother wasn't watching in western North Carolina.
The Henderson County sheriff's office said in a statement they were called to a residence in Mountain Home, south of Asheville, at 4.17pm on Tuesday and found the boy in the fenced backyard.
Deputies said the pit bull was so aggressive they had to shoot and kill the animal so emergency workers could get to the child, Joshua Phillip Strother.
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Joshua Phillip Strother, six, living at 163 Pine Ridge Drive in Hendersonville, North Carolina (pictured), died after being mauled by a neighbor's pit bull
The six-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene despite paramedics' efforts to save him.
Joshua's mother who called 911 said she had gone to the bathroom and lost sight of her son for five to 10 minutes, then was unable to get into the neighbor's yard where he had been attacked.
'I went to the bathroom and my boy is dead,' the boy's mother says on a frantic 911 call released by the sheriff's office and cited by the station WLOS. 'There's blood all over his face.'
The sobbing woman explains that Joshua got out of the house and climbed over a metal fence separating their home from the neighbors' at 183 Piney Ridge Drive.
The owners of the next-door property were not home at the time.
By the time his mother went outside, Joshua had been mauled by the dog.
Joshua's mother who called 911 said she had gone to the bathroom and lost sight of her son for five to 10 minutes, during which time the child climbed a fence into the neighbor's yard. An ambulance is pictured here at the scene
Joshua’s stepbrother Joseph Strother (pictured), speculated that the dog may have become protective over the property and attacked the little boy
The woman told the emergency dispatcher that the child and his friends from the area would regularly climb the 5-foot chain-link fence to play with the one-year-old pit bull.
The animal was adopted by the neighbors from a shelter only three weeks prior to the deadly attack.
‘The dog's been giving him kisses through the fence so my guess is that he... jumped over the fence to play with the dog,’ Joshua’s stepbrother Joseph Strother told the station. ‘The dog got protective over the property and grabbed him.’
No charges have been filed in connection to Strother's death, which sheriff's officials called a tragic accident.
The one-year-old pit bull (not pictured) was adopted by the neighbors from a shelter only three weeks prior to the deadly attack. The image above is a stock photo
Joshua Strother’s great-grandfather, Jerry Hayes, told Citizen-Times the six-year-old was 'smart as a whip' and could count to 100. He would have entered the first grade in August.
According to Dogsbite.org, a national dog bite victims' group dedicated to reducing serious dog attacks, in the 10-year period from 2005 to 2014 pit bulls killed 203 Americans and accounted for 62 percent of the total recorded deaths from dog attacks in the U.S. - 326.
Combined, pit bulls and Rottweilers accounted for 74 per cent of those deaths, according to the group.
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