Rock Hill, SC, Letter Carrier Mark Pizzo was delivering mail recently when he saw a pit bull grip its jaws onto a little girl’s head.
Pizzo yelled at the dog, but nothing happened.
“Then I heard her scream,” he told WBTV. “I’ll never forget the scream. The scream I will never forget for as long as I live.”
Pizzo eventually got the dog to release the child and placed her on top of a nearby trampoline.
Although the dog tried to attack her again, Pizzo and a neighbor were able to get the animal under control. At one point, the dog bit the neighbor.
The child was rushed to a hospital, where she received seven staples in her head. The dog was picked up by animal control and euthanized.
Shaquitta White, the girl’s mother, attended a ceremony honoring Pizzo.
“If this man … was not there, my daughter would not be here,” White told WSOC-TV.
Pizzo is thankful he could help.
“Some people say I saved her life, but do I know that?” he said. “I stopped the situation from what was happening. That’s all that mattered to me.”