Four-year-old girl mauled at Western Australia beach in front of mother

A distraught mother has spoken of the moment her four-year-old daughter was horrifically mauled on a popular beach in a vicious dog attack.

A distraught mother has spoken of the moment her four-year-old daughter was dragged and dunked underwater, in a vicious dog attack on a popular beach.

Natalie was on holiday in Western Australia at a beach in Quindalup in the state’s south with her four children, when the brutal attack occurred.

Natalie said she feared her youngest child Lucia would not survive the brutal rottweiler attack, which left blooded puncture marks all over her body.

Speaking to the ABC, Natalie said her daughter was playing in knee-deep water when the dog raced towards her, before lunging and taking hold of the little girl’s neck and shoulder. Once latched on, the animal dunked and dragged Lucia underwater.

“I ran into the water to try to pull Lucia off,” Natalie said.

“However, the power and the strength of a dog of this breed and size, you’re powerless to do anything.”

Lucia was knee-deep in water when the attack happened. Picture: ABC

Natalie said by the time they unlocked the animal’s jaw and released Lucia, she was “bleeding heavily” and “listless”.

“Her neck, shoulder and back had big puncture wounds. She wasn’t even crying,” she explained.

“The ordeal was absolutely horrendous in every way,” she said, adding in an interview with 7News that the attack was “unprovoked” and “out-of-the-blue”.

“He was very big, very strong. There was no way that we could control what was unfolding … your instinct as a mother is to remove your child from that situation, but you couldn’t,” she said.

“He wasn’t stopping, he just kept biting her.”

The bystander who managed to pull the dog off Lucia was married to a paramedic, so while Natalie’s eldest child called an ambulance — he was able to relay first aid advice to control the bleeding.

Lucia underwent surgeries for her wounds. Picture: ABC

The little girl sustained multiple injuries to her body and limbs. Picture: ABC

But after being told an ambulance would be more than 30 minutes, Natalie made the decision to drive 17 minutes Busselton Health Campus Emergency Department.

It was after a scan of her vitals at the ED the decision was made to have Lucia flown to Perth Children’s Hospital.

Natalie said while the whole ordeal has left everyone in the family traumatised, her daughter Lucia is on her way to recovering following surgeries and now daily dressing changes and canulas.

“It’s horrible to see your child to go through that. She’s this tiny, innocent little thing, and otherwise so happy,” Natalie said.

“It was extremely traumatic, and I don’t want anyone else to go through that.”

Natalie said that since the attack, her daughter doesn’t want to go to the beach or be near their family pet.

“She cannot be around our family pet now. She doesn’t want to go to the beach or be around dogs anymore,” Natalie told the ABC.

“That beach is where most of our family holiday memories are. It should be a safe place. It’s going to be a bit of a road to turn it back into that, from a place of fear.”

Natalie said the attack happened on a public beach, with the dog being so strong she couldn't get it off her daughter. Picture: ABC News.

According to local council, the City of Busselton, the attack happened on a beach where dogs are permitted off-lead. The rottweiler has now been “euthanised, and an investigation is currently underway.”

In October last year, a 19-year-old woman from Perth shared a warning after she was mauled by a rottweiler she had known since it was a puppy.

Haylee Owens was visiting her friend’s with two others in October when she was bitten on the face by her friend’s four-year-old rottweiler.

Ms Owens said the dog, named Ninja, attacked out of nowhere.

“It all just happened so fast. I was giving him cuddles, my friend was behind him, I was in front and he jumped at me and bit me on the face,” Ms Owens told PerthNow, adding an ambulance was called by friends after her forehead began heavily bleeding from the bite site.

“I didn’t even realise I was bitten, it all happened so quick,” she recalled.

“There was a lot of blood.”

In September 2023, a woman was savagely mauled and narrowly escaped death after her two pet rottweilers — Harlem and Bronx — attacked.

Nikita Piil was in her home in Success, south of Perth, when the then 31-year-old was trying to calm her dogs following an incident with a neighbour when she inadvertently became caught between the two and the target of the dogs.

Ms Piil was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, requiring five emergency operations to treat severe wounds to her arm, legs and head.

Police shot and killed one dog, Bronx, after failed attempts to taser the animal. He was later euthanised.

Harlem, the second dog, was restrained on site but was surrendered by Ms Piil six weeks later to the City of Cockburn so he could also be put down.

In Western Australia, The Dog Act 1976 lists several breeds as being identified by the

Commonwealth Government as being particularly aggressive.

They have been banned from import into Australia and each State and territory has

introduced legislation to protect the community from these breeds.

The following breeds are classified as restricted, the dogs Argentino; the fila Brasileiro; the Japanese tosa;, the American pit bull terrier; the pit bull terrier; and the perro de presa Canario or presa Canario.

The rottweiler, however, is not on that list.