A pair of dogs, identified as pit bull mixes, escaped from their owner and attacked students and teachers on a school playground during recess at Willard Intermediate South in Missouri on Tuesday afternoon.
A reported 21 people were injured during the attack, as per the local news outlet Springfield News-Leader. Of the 18 students and three teachers hurt, most were minors.
Heather Harman-Michael, the school’s director of communications and public relations, told the News-Leader that three students and three faculty members sustained bites, scratches and other injuries from the animals, which were attended to by medical personnel.
Not all of the injuries were sustained from the two rogue dogs; Harman-Michael said the remaining injuries were from the chaos that began during the attack. Several students reported scrapes, cuts, bruises and sprains from when they scrambled back to the school building.
The school playground does not have a fence.
Some students at the school — many of whom apparently watched the pandemonium inside from the school’s windows — are now calling their teachers “heroes.”
One unnamed Grade 5 student told local news station KY3 that several teachers were seen “smacking the dogs with clipboards, kicking them, and just pulling them off this one kid.”
A parent from the school claimed one of the teachers, who was seen fighting off the dogs, is pregnant.
Police officers reportedly arrived at the scene within 10 minutes of the attack.
The owner of the two dogs voluntarily surrendered the animals to authorities, and the dogs were later euthanized. They were also tested and found not to have rabies.
Wednesday was the final day at school before the winter break. Counsellors were available on campus to any students who wanted to talk about the attack.
Police and animal control are still investigating the incident.
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