By Hugh Fisher
hfisher@salisburypost.com
KANNAPOLIS ó Two days after being mauled by a pit bull outside his Rena Street home, Kevin Brian Lemus is still scared, his mother says.
When visited at home Friday night, Brian lay in bed cuddling a stuffed bear. His face is puffy and swollen around the stitches in his lip and cheek, and multiple contusions from the dog’s teeth.
He had been resting in bed throughout the day as neighbors and friends came to make sure he and the rest of the family were all right.
Brian doesn’t speak much English. Neither does his mother, Marcela Bravo. Leaning over, she asks, in Spanish, if he feels OK.
Nearby, his brother Johan Lemus sits next to Bravo on the edge of the bed. The boys’ father, Jaime Lemus, was greeting neighbors in the living room, reassuring them that his sons are all right.
Brian is 6 years old; Johan is 9. The Post previously published different names and ages for the boys based on conversations Thursday with Kannapolis Police.
The family has lived on the corner of Rena Street and Akron Avenue for about three months. Jaime said they had never seen the dog that bit Brian and Marcela; they had only heard dogs barking from the house next door.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Johan tells the story of what he saw Wednesday:
“We were outside playing,” he says. “Then we saw this dog. It tried to bite me but didn’t. It chased Brian instead of me.”
Inside the house, Marcela heard her sons shouting in the yard. She ran outside and they both tried to pull the dog off.
Johan ran and grabbed a mop with a red metal handle and tried to beat the dog away.
“The mop broke,” he says. “I kicked him, but nothing happened. Then my mom told me to go get help from the neighbor.”
“He was biting the whole time,” Johan says.
Marcela shielded Brian with her body. In the process, the dog bit her forearms and chest multiple times.
“He was trying to bite my neck,” she says.
Johan ran to a neighbor’s house to get help in driving the dog away. Police and paramedics arrived within 10 minutes after Marcela called 911.
Jaime Lemus was at work when Johan called to tell what had happened.
“I come home, I find the ambulance, I find the firemen,” Jaime says. “I saw my wife and my little boy in the ambulance.”
They were taken to Carolinas Medical Center NorthEast. There, Marcela was treated for the bite wounds. She received six stitches in her left arm, 15 in her right. She was released later that evening.
Brian was transported to Charlotte for surgery. He came home Thursday night.
Dog’s owner shocked
The window of the room where Brian Lemus was resting Friday looks out at the house next door on Akron Avenue where Nina Barkley lives.
Two chains are wrapped around an oak tree in the back yard. One holds Jada, a young pit bull mix who pants, wags her tail and frisks as people walk up.
The other chain is empty.
That’s the one Barkley said held the dog she had called Pug-Pug, the pit bull that savaged Brian and Marcela.
“I haven’t slept in two days. I haven’t eaten,” she says. “I feel like I’ve fallen asleep and can’t wake up.”
Barkley is eager to tell her side of the story.
“The dog was not mine,” she says. “The dog was dying. I nursed him back to health.”
She says she’d had the animal since December.
According to her, the dog belonged to a family friend who is serving time in jail. But she accepts responsibility for what happened later.
“I didn’t know the mentality of the dog,” she says.
According to Barkley, her daughter was at home Wednesday during the attack. Police had her call Barkley, who had just left work.
“They said one of your dogs got loose and has bit a child,” Barkley says. “I immediately started bawling.”
When she arrived at home, Kannapolis Police officers questioned her at length. The ambulance had already taken Brian and Marcela away.
Neighbors told her the dog had been loose since that morning, Barkley says. She did not speculate on how the dog got loose.
Barkley was not arrested, but received a citation from Kannapolis Police for owning a dangerous dog that caused injuries requiring medical treatment costing more than $100. No other charges were filed.
It’s unclear if she will be allowed to keep her other dog.
But it’s clear the incident has had an impact. “I’m being evicted,” Barkley says.
And she is to appear in court April 8 for the citation.
But she says her main concern is for Brian.
“I don’t care about the court date. I don’t care about the charge,” Barkley says. “I care about that boy. I feel like I’m the one that injured him.”
“I want to talk to the parents. I really do,” she says.
But she hasn’t visited yet, although she has spoken to Johan and sent a card.
“They have family over there and I don’t want to get in the way,” Barkley says.
Over at the Lemus home, when told what Barkley has said, Jaime says he wouldn’t mind speaking to her.
Johan, after showing the broken mop he used to try and fend off the pit bull, takes a break to play with his own dog, a small terrier mix tied to a lead on the porch.
But it may be a long time before his brother feels safe playing with him.
Speaking through her son, Marcela has advice for other mothers of small children who live in neighborhoods with strange dogs: “Make sure they have a collar, and make sure the kids stay with you.”