Wychwood Festival, Sophie's dog attack

The reason for writing this post is because we have already had to relay the information of what has happened many times to authorities and loads of people at the festival and anyone that sees Sophie's face and each time relaying what happened is extremely emotional, and we haven't even got round to telling all the people that we love and all our friends which would mean having to relive the experience again and again to pass the information, so to be able to say this just one more time would make this a lot easier on us and the horrible ordeal and memory we hold.



We organised an amazing adventure for Sophie and as a mini break for us this would be our very first camping trip as well as our very first music festival, we had spent weeks preparing and looking forward to an exciting weekend at Wychwood music festival an event voted by the Independent as the top family friendly event for the last 4 years.

We arrived and had rented an amazing soulpad tent my pictures below really don't do it justice on how spacious and airy these are.

 We decamped and made our tent home while Sophie run and had fun making new friends, she was so happy and we were relaxed and looking forward to what the festival had in store for us.

Finally we were ready to go and explore and across the way from us were some interesting stalls one of which had attracted Sophie's attention as well as daddies from the moment we arrived.  It was a kite and flag stall and there were loads of different wind socks, dragons, bugs and flags fluttering about, here is the view of the stall from the door of our tent.  This is where we headed to first even before we entered the festival and was probably an hour and a half after arriving on site.

We approached the tent and there was a nice looking dog not of any articular breed that we did not recognise and looked part mongrel it was a medium size but bigger than Sophie with sandy short fur and was not on a lead laying in the sun as we entered the stall.   Ali went in first and stepped over the dog to look at kites the lady was selling and the dog didn't move.  Sophie and I stopped just outside the tented part of the stall, away from the dog, Sophie was in her buggy and the dog got up and went straight to Sophie to greet her. Sophie was please to meet this doggy and said OOh doggy.  I asked the lady is it a friendly dog and the lady said yes. I asked Sophie would you like to get out and say hello to the doggy and of course she said yes. As i got Sophie out of the buggy the doggy moved back to make room for her I stood by the buggy watching with Sophie in front of me and when Sophie was on the floor the dog laid down onto its back in a very submissive pose showing Sophie its belly as if it wanted to be patted there which Sophie dually did, the dog didn't react and looked like it was enjoying the attention, Sophie then kissed the dogs belly and the dog again did nothing. Sophie then looked at the doggy said Arrr and then patted it a second time on the belly, at which point the dog lurched forward snapping and biting Sophie in the face, Sophie screamed and fell backwards under the weight of the dog the dog then lurched forward again biting her again and shook its head from side to side for a short time with Sophie's face still in its jaws and pinning her to the floor by her face with Sophie screaming.  The dog then released and went in again for another bite, this all happened so quickly in split seconds and was the most freighting sight and sound i have witnessed, i screamed loudly grabbing Sophie before the dog made its third attack on her and in the split second of seeing Sophies face as she was in my arms covered in blood and and the blood just jetting out in streams from her face was horrific, she was frightened and crying, i grabbed the buggy and fled not looking where the dog was or where the owner was, i shouted for help and ran to another stall screaming for help.  Ali run after us as he came out of the stall holders tent hearing all the noise and seeing the what had happened and we all went inside another tent while people radioed for first aid.

Sophie was crying hard as you would expect and i was hysterical and went into shock and was almost sick, Ali was amazing and tried to keep himself as calm as he possibly could and tried to calm me down which didn't work but he did an amazing job at calming Sophie down over a period of time as the first aid people felt like they took ages to come to us, when they did come they said they could do nothing for us there as we were basically in the tent in a field and their first aid packs were tiny, so we had to walk quiet a way to get to the first aid station, through all the festival goers who were staring naturally. We got to the  first aid station to be  told  that they weren't going to clean Sophie's wounds and we should go to A&E.

We got  to hospital about an hour and half after the episode and Sophie was still bleeding but was being an amazing little soldier, we were in paediatrics so she saw the toys and other children and wanted to play which is a great distraction from the bites on her face.  We were seen 4 hours after entering the hospital which was extreamly frustrating as we were the second family there and 7 other people who arrived after us with older children with bumps on the head or sprained wrists got seen before us which i felt was really unfair, i think because they staff saw Sophie running up and down the corridor with a baby walker and the other kids were mopping that went against her and i had to complain several times in order to get them to look at Sophie.  Finally we saw a paediatric doctor who said that because Sophie was so young and wriggly and that some of the wounds looked deep and that she was a girl that he would get a maxio facial doctor to look at her, he came and admitted her into hospital overnight so she could be operated on that morning as they felt that to make the scaring as minimal and as neat as they could they would need to stitch her up under a general aesthetic.

Here is a picture that i took when the wounds finally stopped gushing blood and just oozed.  You can see where one of the bites  went through her cheek from the dogs mouth, the one on the bottom part of the cheek, one of the doctors suspected was a bottom tooth bite as it is a relitivly straight wound and hopefully will heal with minimal scaring, the wound under her eye the doctor said was probably from a canine tooth as it is also deep down behind the cheek as well as across the cheek, it has severed ligaments or something that connects the cheek to the eye and the doctors say that Sophie may end up with a baggy eye also this wound is also jagged and will not heal as easily as a straight wound and will scar the most on her face to a point that she may need plastic surgery when she is a teenager, but we really need to wait a few months to see how she heals and hope for the best and not the worse case.  There is also a wound on her chin which you may not be able to see as well and this is where the dog has bitten all the way through her lip.  The inside of her cheek also has a wound all the way across in a horizontal position.

Although this is awful Sophie was very lucky not to have her eye bitten and been permanently blinded, as you can see it was close.  Also that when the dog was shaking Sophie and I got to her she could of had her lip ripped away from her face or that the dog could have worse gone for her throat and that would have been fatal.  However looking more positively she is young and has a lot of growing to do and as she gets older the scaring will get fainter.  Although people do say this it has absolutely no consolation to us as we would prefer our still beautiful and perfect child as she was. Bite free.

Sophie's op was on Saturday morning and they even got in a special maxio facial doctor just for Sophie for that day. As she was being gassed to put her under i had to hold her in my arms again this was an experienced that was really awful to go through. To poor little Sophie who had already gone through so much she was in a funny crowded room being held down by her mummy and other people with this horrible gas that made her feel funny. She was very distressed and she looked at me as if to say what are you doing to me mummy it was awful and when she finally went under seeing her eyes roll in the back of her head vacantly and then carrying her limp body to the table was very emotional.  It took about a hour to stitch her back together and I went to collect her when she started to wake and the poor little thing was screaming confused and she had one of those needles in her hand that they put a drip into which she was fighting the nurse to remove, while the nurse was trying to tape it down so she couldn't rip it out of her hand.  I had to ask if she really needed it and the nurse said no so i asked for it to be removed, what was the point of distressing her any more than necessary.  You can see she has about 10 external stitches and we are not sure on how many internal stitches she has.

The police came to visit us in hospital and we gave a statement and left to interview other people.  Sophie came to more but was very sick from the aesthetic later she got better and manage to eat and drink and keep it down and we were allowed out of the hospital.  Ali and i made a decision that we wouldn't go home as if we were to take Sophie for a long car ride home then to be stuck at home mopping about that she would pick at her stitches, and that we would try and salvage what little of the weekend for her to cheer her up and act as a distraction from picking.  We initially went to Wychwood to see Mr Tumble and he was playing on that next morning.  So we headed back to the camp site.  The stall holder with the dog was still there and selling her flags but her dogs were in her caravan.  Later that day the policeman went to get her and a witnesses statement and she was charge under the dangerous dog act.  When that happened the Wychwood event people told her to shut her stall down and leave, they put orange plastic fencing round her stall which was very flimsy and low and as the lady packed away, her dog was walking around freely inside this flimsy plastic fencing which really upset us further.  

Also throughout the day before the attack on Sophie took place there were many event staff walking past the stall that saw the dog and in the Wychwood rules it clearly states that no dogs are allowed on site and at no point did the event staff tell the lady to remove the dog.  Speaking to other stall holders that had been to Wychwood for a few years they said that that lady had that dog there on other years as well.

The Wychwood director of festivals came to see us he apologised and asked if there was anything he could do, Ali told him that Sophie would like to meet Mr Tumble as that was what we came for after all and that was organised for Sophie, but really that was Mr Tumbles decision on whether to do that and not Mr Tumbles responsibility to make right what had happened,  and basically that is all the care that Wychwood team gave us, which we felt was extremely poor.  

We were incredibly touched by the people we rented the Soulpad tents from who did an incredible act of kindness and generosity which was not in their remit to have to do but they did more for us in care and consideration than anybody, and we thank them with all our hearts and feel as if we have made a connection with some amazing thoughtful and lovely people.   

Sophie now has to go through a healing stage and it will now take 6 months to a year to see how initially the healing and scar will be on her face and further years of growing to see how these scars will change as she gets older and if she will need surgery as a teenager or not.  As parents we are now haunted by the sounds of the dog noise as it attacked Sophie and the fear in her screams as well as the memories of seeing her so defenceless under the dog. As a mother i am wrapped with guilt that she was attacked and that the would of's should of's going to the stall and letting her pet a supposedly child friendly pet and wishing i was the one bitten and not my most precious daughter, and the re runs of the attack keep playing in my mind as well as every time i see her face and see the scars that i failed her and bring this day back to me.  We will have to take each day and hope that the scaring in minimal.