Baseball bat beats back bad dogs
Surrey man, 20, runs to rescue of bitten, bloodied 11-year-old
Ethan Baron and Ian Austin, with files from Jack Keating, The Province
Published: Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Jordan Slezak's first baseball-bat swing hit the attacking pit bull in the head as the animal chewed on young Sean Bajwa's arm.

The stocky brown dog kept the boy's arm in his mouth and just looked up at Slezak.

So Slezak, 20, raised the bat over his head and brought it down hard on the dog's head.

The pit bull let go and ran, but not before the 11-year-old Surrey boy had bites to his face, arms and one leg that required more than 100 stitches.

Slezak had been talking with his mother in their Surrey living room when they heard screaming coming from a school yard at about 4:30 p.m. Sunday. Living next to Cedar Hills Elementary School, they didn't think much of it.

"The yelling got worse, like someone screaming for their life," said Slezak, a Kwantlen College welding student.

He and his mom ran outside to see a screaming boy lying in the grass by a basketball court, one pit bull savaging his leg, another one circling and barking.

"There was blood everywhere," Slezak said. "I saw blood all over his face, all over his shirt."

Slezak's mother told him to call 911. He ran into his home and ran out with the phone. His mom yelled for him to get his bat. He ran upstairs and grabbed his wooden Louisville Slugger.

By the time he jumped a fence and reached the boy, the dog was mauling the youngster's arm.

"The first swing I gave to the dog was pretty much like a golf swing to the head," Slezak said. "The second blow was two hands overhead, coming down on to the dog's head."

Slezak chased the two pit bulls to a corner in the fencing and held them at bay until police arrived.

"I was worried that the dog was going to go off and attack somebody else," said Slezak. "It could have been a lot worse."

Sean was in stable condition yesterday after a plastic surgeon carefully stitched up his face and limbs to minimize scarring. Nurses at Surrey Memorial Hospital asked that he not be disturbed as he recovers.

"He has nightmares," father Manjit Bajwa said outside the hospital, where the family has stayed with the mauling victim.

"He keeps telling me what happened, over and over again."

Sean was thinking of a dog for a pet, but that's all changed now.

"He used to like German shepherds," said Bajwa. "We were talking about getting a dog two days ago. That's not going to happen now."

Bajwa said there were young girls aged four years old also playing on the field when the attack occurred.

Slezak said the only thing running through his head as he fought the dog off the boy was preventing the child from receiving further injury.

"I knew I could take care of myself," said Slezak, a stocky football player. "I've been around dogs since I was two.

"When I have a bat in my hands, I can pretty well attack anything."

Slezak, who owns a dog, said pit bulls can be dangerous.

"You can raise them to be kind and loving with a child, and one day they'll just snap," he said.

"Pit bulls should be muzzled when they are outside of the home."

The SPCA has seized the dogs and is investigating.

"Our understanding is that one dog was involved in the attack," said Surrey SPCA manager Janice Levers.

"We are furthering our investigation to ensure that we have all the information before releasing the other dog."

The SPCA believes the dog owner's roommate accidentally let the animals out, SPCA spokeswoman Lorie Chortyk said.

The attacking dog will be euthanized if the owner agrees, Chortyk said. If he doesn't agree, the City of Surrey can go to court asking the pit bull be euthanized or seek a dangerous-dog designation for it.

Bajwa said he doesn't blame the dogs, but the owners.

"Sean's a strong boy -- he fought back, he managed to save his face," said the 46-year-old taxi driver and father of two sons. "I blame the owners, not the dogs.

"[The owners] should be charged."

The City of Richmond has a bylaw designating all pit bulls as dangerous dogs, requiring them to be muzzled and leashed in public.

Ontario banned pit bulls in 2005.

The SPCA opposes breed-specific bans.

"What you're doing is assuming that every dog of a specific breed is dangerous, and that is simply not the case," Chortyk said.

"We really have to look at the behaviour of each animal."

Breed-specific bans promote "a false sense of security," in which the necessity for addressing the potential for aggression by all breeds can be overlooked, Chortyk said.