Luan Kurti fears his one-year-old daughter may have suffered permanent sight damage when she was attacked by a large dog in a public park on Saturday.
“Nothing is sure. The doctors say, ‘We have to wait. ‘We have to check.’ But it’s really serious,” said Kurti, who witnessed the attack as he approached his wife and their two small children at about 6:30 p.m. in General Burns Park, off Chesterton Drive near Viewmount Drive in Nepean.
He said his wife had turned to attend to their three-year-old son when their daughter, Lorina, wandered off a short distance and encountered the loose dog.
“I was very close,” the father said in an interview Sunday. ” I was going to pick up my son. She just turned around and turned back and I saw her there crying and bleeding … The dog bit her above the eye. I saw the dog — it was unleashed. Then the dog tried to attack my son. It almost got my son.
“After that, the owner leashed the dog.”
The girl was rushed to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario for emergency surgery. She was released from CHEO at 4 a.m., but Kurti said he was called by the Ottawa General Hospital around 9 a.m. Sunday to meet with specialists who could better determine the damage inflicted during the attack.
Kurti said he did not know the owner of the dog and was unsure what breed it was, other than it was large.
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Lorina Kurti with her father, Luan, and brother, Leonel. Doctors are unsure of the extent of the damage, her father says.
Police were called and turned the investigation over to Ottawa Bylaw Services, the enforcement agency responsible for dealing with animal attacks, after speaking to the dog owner, Kurti said. He said the man told police that the dog was leashed and the girl approached the animal.
Bylaw officers said the owner of the dog would be facing at least a $750 fine, Kurti said.
Under the Dog Owners’ Liability Act, the city has the ability to have the dog put down should an investigation prove that it attacked the toddler.
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Lorina Kurti was rushed to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario after the attack at General Burns Park.
Ottawa police confirmed that they responded to a report of a dog attack and turned the case over to city bylaw officers. A City of Ottawa spokesman could provide no further details Sunday.
Kurti said he fears the worst.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said, looking at Lorina’s injuries. “I can’t find the right words.”
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