13 WTHRAfter the Attack: Part One

After the Attack: Part One

Anne Marie Tiernon/Eyewitness News

(Note: This is Part One in a two-part series. Read Part Two.)

Indianapolis - For nearly two months, two-year-old Amaya Hess lay in a coma after suffering severe head and face trauma from a pit bull attack.

Her mother, Bobbie Jo Tomlin, sang her daughter lullabies while she was on life support. Amaya's injuries were shocking. She was swollen and disfigured from wounds to her face, head and eye.

"When she came in Friday she was missing the entire right side of her face, nose, ear, eye- everything was gone," Tomlin said.

Amaya was mauled by a stranger's pit bull in May. The attack happened as Tomlin was walking along an Indianapolis street with her four-year-old daughter Brielle and Amaya in a stroller.

"The dog came flying out of the door," Tomlin said. "And the dog's feet didn't touch the ground until Amaya's head was in his mouth."

A man driving by stopped to help. Jerry Ashlock performed CPR on the toddler who was lying lifeless on a front lawn. Ashlock revived her twice. "When I arrived she wasn't breathing. Her heart wasn't going," he said.

Four days later the distraught family held a news conference with a tearful mother warning others about the threat posed by dangerous dogs.

At twenty, Bobbie Jo Tomlin is a single parent of two. Now her younger child is teaching her a lesson in life on survival. "She had over a thousand stitches in her face. [The plastic surgeon]couldn't tell me a number."

It took a team to transport a critical Amaya to the operating room at Riley Children's Hospital. In just three months, she would undergo at least nine surgeries. With her scalp nearly half gone, plastic surgeons used bioengineered tissue to repair the damage.

Plastic Surgeon Dr. Rajiv Sood explained the process: "The technology is a big deal and if it works it's a nice deal for her because we'll be able to provide much better coverage for her skull, much better protection for her skull with use of this artificial skin."

Amaya had a slight fever before undergoing surgery. Infection was a big worry as the surgeon's options are limited. "We were really up against a road block," said Sood. "And this bioengineered tissue substitute that really salvages her skull because if that skull had gotten infected that would be a huge problem."

But this surgery was a success and thirty-five days after the attack Tomlin was finally able to hold her daughter. While sitting in a chair in her small hospital room the young mother tearfully said to Amaya, "I've been waiting so long for this. I miss you so much."

With another surgery complete and many more to come, the next concern was whether the toddler had suffered any brain damage. Would she be able to recognize her family? There were many questions as Amaya lay in a drug-induced coma. Tomlin had nightmares about her daughter surviving, but demanding to know why her mother had consigned her to a lifetime of disfigurement.

"When I heard her neurological prognosis [early on] I was really disappointed, because you know we had her covered. We had her done. She wasn't waking up. She was having seizures and that whole problem there. That was very disappointing for her because you do all this and then you are told the patient may not recover at all," said Dr. Sood.

While Tomlin waits for her daughter to wake up she worries and has nightmares about what to do or say to her toddler. "My worst one (nightmare) [is that] Amaya would wake up and say would you want to live the rest of your life like this looking like this? Why did you save me?"

Day fifty-five at Riley Children's Hospital was a big milestone for the little girl who went through so much. Amaya finally woke up and saw her mother's face. The recognition was immediate as her tiny hand reached out for her mother.
 
"She's waking up!" Tomlin said, excited. "See her eye open? Hi baby. Are you going to talk to me?"

Tomlin recounted that day: "I was really scared for her to wake up. I was really afraid and I talked to psychologists and things and told them that was one of my worst fears is for her to wake up, but at the same time that's what I wanted."

The very next day Amaya started to play and show her emotions. Some of her muscle strength deteriorated; she had the muscle reflexes of a three month-old baby. But for her mother that's just fine; at least she has her little girl back.

As the day wore on, so did Amaya's emotions. She started crying and wanted Tomlin to pick her up, but Tomlin could not because of her daughter's condition. "You want me? I want you, too. She's crying."

Tomlin struggled to figure out what to say to her daughter. "I don't know how to explain what happened," said Tomlin. "I'm sorry she has got to live like this. I'm sorry that that dog wanted her that bad. I'm sorry that I couldn't save her better."

While the family tried to cope with what's next for Amaya, her four-year-old sister Brielle was dealing with her own emotions. She was having nightmares about that day. "You can't ask a four-year-old to sit at the hospital for four hours. I can't ask her to sit there for an hour," said Tomlin.

Tomlin only expected to stays a few weeks at the Ronald McDonald House. The days were adding up, as were the medical bills.

One bill was over $41,000. The young mother admitted that's probably more than she's made in her entire life so far. For now Medicaid is paying but fundraisers supplement Mom's lost income, as she cannot afford to get a full-time job because she is staying with Amaya.

By August another milestone was reached. Amaya left Riley Children's Hospital. The ambulance transported her just a few blocks away to Methodist Hospital where she would start undergoing rehabilitation the next day.

When she went to Riley, Amaya was still heavily sedated and not breathing, eating, or talking on her own. But that was set to change as soon as her team of therapists prepared for her to walk out of the hospital in a few short weeks.

Watch Part Two of After the Attack at 6:00 pm Friday on Eyewitness News.

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