Updated by Sharon Osorio

A three-month old baby boy is attacked by a Staffordshire Bull Terrier in the City of Tonawanda this afternoon. He suffered injuries from his chest to his lower abdomen. The hospital does not have permission to release the current condition of the baby, but police say the child would be undergoing emergency surgery at Buffalo's Women and Children's Hospital, then transfered to the Intensive Care Unit. The baby suffered life-threatening injuries and was bleeding severely from the attack, but Detective Tim Toth says despite the horrific injuries, the baby was crying, moving and had good color when he was taken to the hospital.

The attack happened at 1pm at the family home on Gaff Terrace in the City of Tonawanda. The City of Tonawanda Police Department has not released the exact location of the attack or the name of the young victim.

Officials say the family pet, a 6-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier (which is in the pit bull family) attacked the baby while the mother left the room for a brief time, taking a baby monitor with her. Police do not know whether the baby was in a carrier, on the floor, or in a different location when the incident began, but evidence on the ground shows the dog dropped the baby and picked him back up in several locations in two different rooms.

The detective says the first responder was Fire Captain Rob Hassett, who was off-duty at his nearby home when he heard the dispatch call. He rushed over and started administering emergency care to the baby, and the detective says Hassett likely saved the baby's life. However, when Hassett first arrived, the dog involved in the attack aggressively tried to keep Hassett from entering the home. It finally took two SPCA officers to restrain the dog to remove it from the scene. A second family dog, a pit bull, was not involved in the incident, but both are now at the SPCA pending further action.

The SPCA serving Erie County says the owner has not signed over custody of the dogs so they are just acting as a holding facility for the police at this point. The detective says they could put the animal down at the direction of the police or the courts. At this point we're not sure if both animals would be destroyed or if just the attacking dog would be put down. Also unclear at this hour is if the Staffordshire was vaccinated for rabies.

Toth says many of the responders were shaken by the incident. He warns that new parents must monitor the tendencies of family pets when human babies are brought into the home because the dogs might become territorial.

He does not expect any charges to be filed against the distraught parents.