2-year-old Fort Worth girl attacked by pit bull in CPS custody. Her parents visit her daily

James Hartley
·2 min read
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The parents of a 2-year-old Fort Worth girl attacked by a pit bull while in CPS custody have been visiting their daughter at the hospital every day since it happened, Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV reported.

They were there Friday evening. It was a tearful visit, like most of them have been every day after work for the last two weeks, the family told WFAA. Dalena Martin and her husband, Jeremy Martin, voluntarily entrusted the care of their daughter to family friends after they relapsed on their drug addictions. It’s called a temporary safety plan.

Child Protective Services got involved after that, WFAA reported. The state offered an option to place the 2-year-old girl, McKenna, in a relative’s home. Two weeks later, that family’s pit bull lunged at McKenna across a table and attacked her.

“It then got the taste of blood in her mouth and went crazy,” Dalena Martin told WFAA. “She (the dog) was already becoming reactive, but she was a family dog and she laid with McKenna the night before.”

McKenna was taken to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, where she’s been since. The dog attacked her face, crushed her cheek bones and bit her leg. Until Nov. 6, according to an update on a GoFundMe account the parents set up, just asking the community for money to help pay for gas to go to and from the hospital and making it to follow-up appointments, she was kept under a paralytic drug.

“We are very fortunate that she survived this brutal attack,” the GoFundMe page reads. “McKenna is an angel ... She has a beautiful spirit.”

Since her hospitalization, the family said in the Nov. 6 update, swelling in McKenna’s face has gone down considerably and color has returned to her face.

As of this week, McKenna was still in CPS custody. The parents wants to change that, fighting to regain custody of their daughter, and also raise awareness about the dangers of having a child around a dog that starts showing signs of aggression.

“We want our daughter back,” Jeremy Martin told WFAA. “This was supposed to be CPS’s safety plan, and McKenna paid the price for it.”