Berkeley County mom, two children attacked by neighbor’s Pitbull

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - A Berkeley County family is in the process of healing after their neighbor’s Pitbull attacked a mother and her two young children.

The incident happened the evening of April 26 in Bonneau, when the Bayles family said their elderly neighbor with dementia wandered onto their property and needed help getting back home.

Mother Bethany Hastings said she and her two young children helped the neighbor get home on their golf cart. But when they got there, their neighbor’s Pitbull was loose, and it ran outside and jumped on the golf cart. First, the dog attacked their 2-year-old son, and then their 4-year-old daughter, Lainey Bayles.

“First he got my brother, and then second he got me and then third he got my mom,” Lainey said.

Hastings, a nurse, was able to stop the dog from attacking her two kids again by holding him down for fifteen “terrifying” minutes until help arrived, as the dog continued to lunge at her.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Hastings said. “If I had let go, he would have gotten me or them again.”

Hastings said a neighbor arrived about five minutes before EMS and pulled the two children into his truck to help. She calls him their “hero.”

According to a report from the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office, the three were then transported to MUSC for treatment.

Although Bethany and her son were released from the hospital that night, 4-year-old Lainey sustained the most severe injuries and spent four days in the hospital, with two of those days in pediatric intensive care.

“They hadn’t quite seen anything like that before to that extent, with that much damage,” Hastings said.

Hasting said over the next year, Lainey will have to go through several different procedures to correct the injuries to her face.

“She’s in karate and tee-ball, so I thought she’d wind up at the hospital maybe for a broken bone or something crazy like that, but never this; never,” Hastings said.

After the attack, the family said it’s been hard navigating their new fear of just being outside.

“After that, you realize just how vulnerable you are to everything,” Hastings said.

Hastings said she hopes that their story is a reminder that if you have a dog that could cause any sort of harm, you should keep it contained so it can’t hurt anyone.

Hastings also said the dog was euthanized.

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