Off-duty St. Pete officer saves baby from rottweiler attack in Parrish: 'A mother's worst nightmare'

Neighbor rescues baby from dog attack

FOX 13's Kailey Tracy reports. 

PARRISH, Fla. - An off-duty police officer is being hailed as a hero after leaping a fence to save a two-month-old infant from a neighbor’s rottweiler Saturday morning.

The backstory:

Dale Johnson, a St. Petersburg police officer, was preparing for work when he heard what he described as "the most blood-curdling screams" coming from a few houses down from his Parrish home.

READ: ZooTampa mourns the death of beloved Florida panther, Lucy, after battle with cancer

"I peered over the fence again, and I could see a rottweiler shaking what appeared to be a small child in its mouth," Johnson said. "I put on a pair of pants, jumped the fence, and proceeded to the houses where the original screaming was coming from."

According to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, a woman was in her backyard with her puppy on a leash when her next-door neighbor’s rottweiler, who wasn’t on a leash, charged into her yard and started attacking the puppy.

The woman, who was holding her two-month-old baby at the time, intervened to break up the fight and managed to get the puppy inside. However, as she attempted to close the door, the dog lunged and bit the baby’s right leg, the sheriff’s office said.

MORE: Pinellas County uses AI facial recognition to reunite lost pets with families via Petco Love Lost

"The owner of the dog was unable to get the dog to relinquish his mouth from the baby's leg, and that's when I basically tackled the rottweiler to the ground, held him in place, began choking him and used my two fingers to stick them down the nostril of the dog's nose," Johnson said.

"It causes an involuntary almost choking or coughing, a brief hesitation, just enough to allow me to kind of get my hands in place to give a little movement where I can get the leg removed from the mouth," he said.

Johnson said the mother then took the baby inside, where Johnson and his wife consoled her and the baby. The dog’s owner was able to get it back to his home. 

"I just like got to her eye level and I was like, ‘I'm here with you,’" Dale’s wife, Megan, said. "She kind of rolled the baby over a little so I could see his face and he was wide awake, just calm as can be. And so, I said, ‘my husband's a police officer. Let him assess the baby for injuries and stuff.’ And so, we passed the baby off to Dale. And I just hugged the mom and I just held her and I said, ‘I'm a mom too. I'm here with you.'"

READ: Retired K9, who served Winter Haven PD for seven years, passes away

The infant was rushed to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital to be treated for a laceration that required stitches.  

What they're saying:

"That's a mother's worst nightmare is having your child, especially one so tiny, being in a life-threatening situation like that, and I can tell you, as a first-hand witness, with 100% certainty there would not have been any other outcome besides the baby's death had Dale not intervened when he did. I can't tell you that," Megan Johnson said.

Other neighbors who witnessed the incident echoed Megan, saying Dale is a "hero and deserves a lot of recognition."

Johnson said he was just in the right place at the right time.

"Luckily, I was able to take quick action. I was in close proximity to where it was occurring, and, you know, I would hope somebody would do the same for my family, heaven forbid," he said.

MORE: Lutz dog wins Best of Breed at Westminster

He attributed his quick thinking to both a childhood experience, and his professional training.

"My brother was attacked by a German shepherd when we were small and so, I remember doing research, or my parents doing research and kind of relaying that to me. I read about it as a law enforcement officer, because we encounter stray dogs, aggressive dogs as we're coming up to residences all the time," Johnson said.

The officer sustained minor injuries during the struggle, including cuts to his hands and bruised ribs. 

The other side:

Manatee County Animal Welfare officers were in the neighborhood again on Tuesday investigating, and said the dog’s owner is cooperating. FOX 13 reached out to the baby’s family, but they did not want to do an interview.