This Time, Dingoes Didn't Get the Baby

Rescue personnel say a father fought off several dingoes to save his 14-month-old son from one of the wild dogs that was dragging the boy from their camper van on an Australian island early Friday. The boy had deep cuts on his head from the attack on Fraser Island in Queensland state, paramedic Ben Du Toit says. The family was sleeping when a dingo entered their camper van, the AP reports. Du Toit said the parents awoke to their son's cries, the sound fading as he was dragged away. The father ran outside and fought off several dingoes to rescue his son.

"He was apparently grabbed around the back of the neck area and dragged away. So, if it wasn't for the parents and their quick thinking and fighting off the dingoes, he probably would have had more severe injuries," Frank Bertoli, a pilot for RACQ Life Flight, tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The boy was airlifted to a hospital early Friday. Bertoli says the boy is the third child attacked by dingoes on Fraser Island this year. The island, which is part of an Australian national park, displays strong warnings for visitors to avoid dingoes and to not try to draw their attention or leave food behind. Extra rangers have been assigned to investigate the attack and patrol the island. (An inquest in 2012 determined that dingoes killed a 9-week-old baby in a 1980 attack.)