Could It Happen To You?
Baby AJ's story of being taken from his crib by the family dog Dakota
by
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However, on this occasion, neither of us locked the door. Hell, I guess both of us thought the other might have locked it. Maybe we were both delirious new parents and we were just tired. I don't know why we didn't lock the door and I don't have an answer for you. I don't have an answer for our critics, the authorities, the media, our friends, our families, or most importantly, AJ. I just really don't know. All I do know is that in this case, we just didn't lock the door. …. I was still in the office while Chrissie went upstairs, unlocked the door, and I heard the most complete gut wrenching scream another human can possibly hear, especially from a loved one. I never want to hear that sound again and I pray none of you ever have to hear it. Chrissie realized the dogs had very quietly snuck outside downstairs, quietly climbed the large wooden stairs of the back deck, and opened our bedroom door. I like to think of myself as an above average thinker but I was just stunned, almost frozen with no idea what to do. I was immediately petrified as I moved from my chair in the office and walked to the landing at the base of the stairs as Chrissie yelled, “He's gone, they took AJ.” Time went from slow motion to warp speed. …. The director of the ER came into the room and basically said that she wanted us to go back to see AJ. She explained that the hospital had so many people working on him that we wouldn't believe it. I didn't know what that meant. She followed it up with, “But you really need to see him.” Dr. A also came in and I had always thought that doctors didn't usually show much emotion. Dr. A was different. She was doing her best not to show emotion, but you could see in her face and hear in her voice that she was distraught. She too said, “We need to get you to see AJ, especially the mother.” It hit me like a sledgehammer. This was going to be the last time we were ever going to see our AJ alive. That was my bad feeling coming to fruition. In a case like this, I don't know how others handle it, but I personally lost all emotion and feeling in my body.
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About the Book
You may have heard of the infamous dog snatches baby case that happened in Kentucky in July 2009. Just three days old, Baby AJ was fast asleep in his crib after a morning feeding. With his parents downstairs preparing for the rest of the day, Dakota and Nikita, two of the family dogs, snuck upstairs and opened the back door to the bedroom. Dakota then took AJ out of his crib and proceeded out back into the woods, carrying AJ in her mouth. The mother, Chrissie, is a British citizen and the father, Michael, was born in Indiana. Together they give a brief account of their lives prior to the accident followed by excruciating details of the accident itself including the 15 minutes it took to find their son and the nightmare they had to endure afterwards. Starting with the accident and the 911 call, followed by the emergency room and AJ's stay in Pediatric Intensive Care, Michael and Chrissie give a very personal account of the feelings and emotions they experienced along with pictures from their private collection. Although the story generated a massive media storm and immediately made national news, the public was generally shielded from the private details the couple had to deal with in the background. Michael and Chrissie intimately share those private details including social services and Sheriff investigations that ultimately resulted in information brought before the grand jury and formal child neglect charges filed against the couple. Michael and Chrissie gives you a chance to step into their shoes and experience what it was like to not only live through a horrifying accident of this nature but for all of the parents out there with newborns, wonder whether or not, Could This Happen To You?
About the Author
Michael is a loving father of three that unfortunately found himself at the forefront of a tragic accident, in-depth investigations, and a media circus. He genuinely opens up his family's inner most feelings and emotions in an attempt to give you as a realistic view as possible of all the events that transpired so you can try and imagine what his family had to endure. In his inaugural book, he doesn't only focus on the obvious emotions surrounding the accident, but he also does a wonderful job of exposing so many other emotions as he gives you a colorful look at the family's background leading up to the accident and an in-depth look at the two months his family spent in a self described hell.