SAN ANTONIO – A 9-year-old girl is now confined to a hospital bed after she was viciously attacked by a pit bull.
It happened last Thursday in the 200 block of Albert Street on the city's West side, police said.
On Monday, Arianna Velasquez, 9, was still recovering at University Hospital in good spirits -- but still in shock.
"I was thinking that I wasn't' going to be alive," said Velasquez. "I thought I was going to die."
Velasquez said she was viciously attacked by a pit bull last week while visiting a neighbor's house.
"The owner's daughter ... said that the dog was tied up in the fence," she said. "So, I said, 'OK,' and (that) we were just playing a game called cops and robbers."
However, just moments after, the dog got out.
"He was starting to bark and growl and stuff and I got scared," Velasquez said. "So I was backing up so I could get close to the gate, just in case he tried something."
She said she tried to get away, but she tripped and that's when the dog attacked, tearing at her right leg and backside.
The brave little girl said she screamed for help and curled up in a ball so the pit bull wouldn't get her neck.
She said the owner finally came out and hit the dog on the nose until he let go.
That pit bull is now in quarantine and the case is under investigation.
However, Arianna's mother said her daughter injuries are severe and that the dog chewed at her to the bone.
Arianna said she hopes that this will not happen to other children.
"If their friends or somebody has a pit bull and they want to go to their house," she said, "don't go there, because you never know, you might get this accident, like me. I don't want that to happen to other kids."