GRAPHIC: Girl who was attacked by dog receives over 1,000 stitches

CHESTERVILLE, Maine (WMTW) - A 6-year-old girl from Maine was hospitalized with 1,000 stitches to her face after a pit bull attacked her.

“I’m trying so hard not to cry,” Dorothy Norton, the girl’s mother, says.

Norton says the attack happened Saturday in Chesterville inside a neighbor’s home where her daughter Lily was playing with a friend.

At the time, the friend’s mother was caring for a female pit bull, according to Dorothy Norton.

“Lily sat at the table and the dog attacked her. She went like this to put her shoulders up, so she did the right thing because the dog was going for her neck. Then the mom came out of the bathroom because the other little girl was screaming, ‘Mom, mom, there’s something wrong.’ And as soon as she walked out into the kitchen, the dog let go,” Dorothy Norton describes.

Lily was raced to a hospital in Farmington but was then flown to a Boston medical center with her parents.

She needed more than 1,000 stitches across her face.

“She can’t talk at all right now but she has been very responsive today. She’s been looking at me, blinking and telling me what she needs,” Dorothy Norton says.

A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family with medical expenses.

Dorothy Norton says she can’t wait to hold her daughter again and she is hoping for a speedy recovery.

Chesterville animal control will not comment on the case because it is an open investigation, but Dorothy Norton says officials are working with the sheriff to put the dog down.