It was a very lucky escape for a little girl in the north of Western Australia after she was attacked by a dingo.
The dingo snatched 2-year-old Stella Dwyer as she was crawling along the beach and attempted to drag her away while the family were picnicking on Friday.
The infant is said to have suffered scratching on the back of her body but is otherwise ok, having escaped the dingo’s hold.
The incident occurred near Kooljaman Resort at Cape Leveque, to the north of the popular remote tourist destination of Broome.
It is, of course, reminiscent of the world famous Azaria Chamberlain case in which a dingo is believed to have taken and killed baby Azaria near Uluru in Australia’s Northern Territory.
Christine Dwyer, the infant’s 27-year-old mother, described to the ABC how the wild dingo tried to take her daughter.
“She (Stella) tried to crawl away and was crying, and it (the dingo) just ran back in and grabbed her on the back and buttocks,” Dwyer said.
She praised the staff of the resort for the quick response in coming to the family’s aid.
“They were very helpful, they continued to shoo it away and took us up to the nurses to make sure she didn’t need any tetanus injections or anything like that, and just clean up the little scratches and puncture wounds that she received through the nappy,” she said.
According to Dwyer, local rangers had located and shot a dingo following the attack however it was not the one believed to be responsible for the attack on little Stella. It is understood the dingo that was responsible has since been destroyed.