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Tracy Moore recounts how she heroically protected her 4-year-old son during a vicious dog attack, despite the ordeal resulting in the loss of his ear, which had to be amputated following a week-long hospital stay.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In a desperate bid to save her young son from a ferocious dog attack, a Jacksonville mother bravely covered him with her body in their driveway last month.
The incident unfolded on November 20 near Marquis Drive on the Westside, as Tracy Moore and her son Roland awaited his school bus.
A seemingly ordinary morning quickly escalated into a terrifying struggle for survival when two dogs approached the pair.
Initially appearing harmless, the dogs allowed Moore and Roland to pet them, according to the incident report from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
“Then a white dog pounced,” Moore recounted. “They kept coming. They would not stop coming.”
Roland, now recovering at home, described the horror in a child’s words.
“A black doggy, a white doggy,” he said. “Two of them cut my ear off.”
When asked if he was scared, the boy nodded.
Officers responded to a call about a dog bite with injury. The report detailed a “non-life-threatening injury” to Roland’s left ear, which was left “hanging from the side of his head.”
He was transported by Jacksonville Fire and Rescue to Wolfson Children’s Hospital.
Moore said she intervened immediately.
“I absolutely know it would be death if I didn’t step in,” she said, showing fresh scars on her neck.
Neighbors helped secure the dogs in a fenced yard until animal control arrived. The incident report said the dogs had gotten out through a fence that was falling apart.
The report says the dog’s owner was going to surrender them to animal control.
Moore believes both dogs were euthanized. First Coast News is working to confirm with Animal Care and Protective Services.
Roland spent a week in the hospital undergoing treatments before doctors amputated his ear the day before Thanksgiving. The family returned home that holiday “forever changed,” Moore said.
“I was completely in shock, absolutely in shock, but I had to stay strong for him,” she said.
Roland cannot get a prosthetic ear until age 6, and the family faces mounting medical bills and therapy costs as he deals with the trauma.
“There is no way to describe it,” she said. “There’s no words to put into it other than I wasn’t alone,” she said. “He’s going to be a strong guy. He’s going to have a heck of a personality through all this.”
JSO referred the case to Animal Care and Protective Services. The agency has not yet responded to inquiries.
Moore said the family is “lucky to be alive.”
The family has created a GoFundMe to help deal with the sudden expenses.
