Boy saves sister from being mauled

FORT FRANCES—Keenan Geyshick of Lac La Croix First Nation is a hero, especially in the eyes of his younger sister and family.
The five-year-old boy saved his sister, Karis, two, from being mauled by dogs while playing outside late last month.
“I fought them and I kicked them off my Karis,” the youngster told his family following the terrifying incident.
Karen Geyshick said her children had gone outside to play that Saturday afternoon.
“I hardly let my children outside with the cold weather, but this day was different—it was a beautiful day, warm, almost like spring had arrived,” she noted.
“So I dressed Keenan and Karis and let them play outside in our yard, thinking these children had enough of being inside all winter,” she added. “They need to be outside.”
She recalled thinking to herself, “What could happen in our own yard?”
Geyshick said she watched the children frolic in the snow—pulling each other in the sled and making snow caves in the drifts.
“We [she and the older children] took turns running in and out, keeping a close eye on Keenan and Karis, making sure that they were within sight,” she stressed.
But it was just after Geyshick had gotten out of the shower and about to make a phone call that she heard her son’s piercing scream: “My Karis is dead!”
“I jumped off the couch and out the door when I turned to face Karis, who was coming around the corner from behind the house, her face all bloody and crying.
“I grabbed her and hurried into the house, tearing off her outer clothes,” Geyshick recalled, adding she primarily was worried about the open gash above her young daughter’s right eyebrow.
She said her instincts told her to have someone go outside to check the area where the children had been playing to see if they could discover what had happened.
“Sure enough, it was found out that with the dog tracks and her footprints all over, she had been attacked,” she said.
After calling the ambulance, Geyshick covered the gash on her daughter’s forehead.
As a first responder, she noted she had to compose herself, which was difficult since it was her own child injured and everyone around her was panicking.
Karis was taken to the Atikokan General Hospital, where she was attended by Dr. H. Frye. She required 31 stitches and seven staples.
“It was scary,” Geyshick said. “While the doctor was stitching her up in the emergency room, that’s when I collapsed. It finally hit me—she could have been killed.”
Geyshick indicated stray dogs running loose on the reserve is a real problem and has been for quite some time.
Their family dog, a female part-husky which was given to them by another family member, was in heat. And she had a few dogs following her and causing fights.
“Karis happened to be there at the wrong time,” she said.
Geyshick expressed her appreciation for Keenan being there to save his younger sister.
“I am very thankful for him to be there to chase the dogs off he. He saved her life,” she said. “The dogs intent that fateful day was to kill and not maim because her hands, her clothes were all intact and not ripped.”
Geyshick noted the dogs have since been put down. But while Karis is doing well and upholding her sunny disposition, she added both her children still are frightened to go outside.
“She cringes when she hears dogs,” she noted. “They’re going to be scared for a long time. But they are sleeping better now.”
She said in the future she will make sure there is someone outside with her children at all times.
“It could happen to anyone,” she stressed. “Every day I give Keenan a hug, thanking him for saving his little sister, but he just shrugs, ‘My Karis is safe now.’”
(Fort Frances Times)