Girl, 5, Bitten in Face and Pregnant Mom Also Injured in Texas Dog Attack

A pregnant woman and her 5-year-old child were hospitalized Tuesday evening after being attacked by a dog in the Houston area.

The attack occurred in Dwight D. Eisenhower Park, which is located to the northeast of the city in Harris County, Texas, on the south coast of Lake Houston.

"The dog—a pit bull mix—was running loose in the park and approached the family," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told Newsweek.

Deputies responded to the incident in Eisenhower Park. The child and pregnant mother both sustained bite wounds, Gonzalez said.

The pair were both subsequently transported to the hospital. Authorities said the 5-year-old girl was bitten in the face and suffered cuts to the back of her head, Fox 26 reported. The mother was also bitten in the back of the head.

Animal control officials have taken the dog responsible for the attack. It is believed that the dog does not have an owner.

"We do not know who the owner is or where the dog came from," Gonzalez said.

Most dogs never bite or kill humans. But research conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggests that more than 4 million people are bitten by dogs every year in the United States.

The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that around one in five dog bites will require medical attention.

Fatalities resulting from dog attacks are very rare. CDC data shows that 33 recorded deaths per year, on average, resulted from dog attacks in the United States between 1999 and 2020. While adults are often the victims of such incidents, children are more likely to suffer serious injuries.

Dog attacks can result in infections, which occur in an estimated 3 to 18 percent of cases, according to a study published in the journal Wilderness & Environmental Medicine.

The incident in Harris County is not the only dog attack to have occurred in the Houston area in the past few days.

On June 10, a woman, Mari Perez, was attacked by a pitbull out of nowhere in her front yard, KTRK reported. She suffered serious bites to her hand and foot, as well as deep gashes on her arms.

The pit bull also attacked her neighbor's dog, who the woman was looking after at the time. The neighbor's dog was seriously injured and still hospitalized as of Wednesday, KTRK reported.

The pit bull responsible for the attack had previously killed another dog around eight months ago, according to BARC Houston, the city's animal shelter, cited by KTRK.

BARC said the death did not warrant a dangerous dog investigation into the pit bull at the time because there was no unprovoked attack on a human. Now, city authorities have launched an investigation and animal enforcement officers with BARC have taken the pit bull away.

A study published in June found that Houston saw the most dog attacks on Postal Service workers out of any U.S. city in 2022.

The study, conducted by the Postal Service, found that more than 5,300 of its employees were attacked by dogs across the country while delivering the mail last year. Of these incidents, 57 attacks occurred in Houston—more than in any other city.

Update 06/19/23, 11:44 a.m. ET: This story was updated to include additional comments from Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.