Shaq lends helping hand to family of child mauled in vicious dog attack
Two months after surviving a horrifying dog attack on a southwest Atlanta street, 5-year-old Syrai Sanders returned home Wednesday, hoping to return to some semblance of normalcy after a tragic ordeal that necessitated eight surgeries (with more to come) and claimed the life of another child. Finding that might be impossible, but one NBA legend wanted to do what he could to help.
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From The Associated Press:
Shaquille O’Neal has bought new furniture for the family of a 5-year-old Atlanta girl who survived a dog attack that left another child dead. […]
O’Neal met Sanders and her family at an Atlanta furniture store and picked up the tab for new items. The family tells WAGA that the former NBA star and current TNT analyst has been involved with the family since the attack.
On Jan. 17, Syrai was one of several children walking to a school bus stop when two dogs set upon them in what the Atlanta Journal Constitution described as “an extraordinarily savage attack”:
The scenes from Gideons Drive Tuesday were shocking and unforgettable. Little kids fighting with vicious dogs, trying to keep the animals off their friends. An Atlanta police officer, gun in hand, approaching a dog on the porch, the dog’s fur tinged pink with the children’s blood. A neighbor going after the dogs with a gun of his own.
Logan [Braatz, age 6] and Syari were classmates at F.L. Stanton Elementary School and lived one house apart from each other. Both were targeted by the dogs, described as pit-bull mixes, which neighbors recognized as living at a house nearby. Logan and Syari were no match for the animals.
From WSB-TV in Atlanta:
Shamonta Clayton, a neighbor to the children who were attacked, said he woke up this morning to screams and ran outside. He found a little girl who had been badly mauled.
“As I get to the end of the street, I see the child’s unconscious body laying in the middle of the street,” Clayton said.
He noticed another dog and followed it, finding children pinned on a porch in the back of an abandoned house.
“So I chased the dog away from the kids, and I noticed the second child, a little boy, his unconscious body laying down in the grass,” Clayton said.
The dog circled back to the child and Clayton said he chased the dog off with his gun.
“I picked the child’s body up because his mom couldn’t do nothing but sit there and just cry,” Clayton said.
Syrai suffered serious dog bites to her head and face, but survived. Logan died at the hospital later that morning.
Officers arrested Cameron Tucker, the dogs’ owner, and charged him with two counts of reckless conduct, both misdemeanors. The Fulton County district attorney’s office later upgraded one charge to involuntary manslaughter, but both charges were reduced last month to misdemeanor manslaughter.
According to FOX 5 in Atlanta, Hall of Famer and Turner Sports commentator O’Neal has been involved with Syrai’s family since learning of the attack on the news.
“He stayed in contact every day,” Syrai’s father, Willie Sanders, said. “He made sure she was all right. He came around. Even now, he didn’t want to get on the camera and he didn’t want to do it for the news, but yeah, he’s a great man to me.”
Syrai still needs more surgery as she continues her recovery, and it’s not yet clear when she’ll be able to return to school. But she’s back home, and she’s on the way.
“She’s doing awesome,” Sabrina Williams, her grandmother, said Wednesday, according to the AJC. “She’s got her same spirit.”
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
