Jess Battison
Warning: This article contains content which some readers may find distressing
A heroic lad jumped in to save a woman and her newborn baby when they were being attacked by three dogs.
William Newbury had gone to visit his friend Emily on 30 March when he could hear screams ‘from five houses away’ and immediately began running over.
He ended up being left with serious injuries and lost part of his hand after Emily’s stepmum, Theresa, said that without him, she’d be having to hold a ‘funeral of mummy and son’.
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The lad's mum, Helen, explained that when he reached the house in Llanrummey, east Cardiff, he looked through the letterbox of the broken door and could see Emily ‘was being attacked by three dogs while she was holding the baby’.
The mum was protecting her baby and ‘ended up taking the brunt of the attack’.
“William pulled the window open and went in. He grabbed hold of the baby and tossed it to safety. The dogs were hanging on her and were adamant they were after her,” Helen told WalesOnline.
“William got her out of the window and was then in the house with them unable to get out. He had stitches in his face, his body. Some of the places where he’s been bitten they can’t totally seal up because dog saliva is so dangerous. Every crease in his fingers he had stitches in. He’s got bites everywhere.”
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They were then blue-lighted to hospital with the dogs put to sleep that evening.
A fundraiser set up by Theresa says that Emily has so far had three surgeries and there ‘are concerns regarding nerve damage in her arm, and her finger along with the psychological damage’.
The baby suffered minor injuries and the mum was unable to hold him at first as the fundraiser adds: “Thanks to Emily the baby got away with only minor injuries and will be able to go home when Emily does.”
The JustGiving page has been set up to help them while they recover, with William said to be unable to work.
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“Will is a hero, there is no other word for what he did to save Emily and the baby,” the fundraiser explains. “Without him, it would have been a whole different story and this page would have been for the funeral of mummy and son. I'm not being dramatic, that is how it is, we are so grateful to Will and will be indebted to him forever.”
South Wales Police said in a statement: “South Wales Police was called on Sunday March 30,2025, to Paracombe Crescent in Llanrumney to reports of three dogs having attacked a man, a woman, and a child. All three suffered injuries that required treatment but were not life threatening.
“Three Staffordshire Bull terriers were put to sleep because of the incident. No arrests were made but investigations continue.”