DEKALB COUNTY, Ga.,None — A young girl took the stand Thursday to show jurors what was left of her arm after a pit bull attack.
A neighbor of Erin Ingram, 10, is on trial for not keeping the dogs confined on other charges.
Channel 2's Jeff Dore was in the courtroom when the girl took the stand.
Dore said at least one of the jurors cringed when Ingram showed her arm.
The girl's was so badly mauled, a surgeon had to remove part of it. The other arm has been left disfigured and her ankles are also scarred from the attack.
"It looked like shredded meat," is how Tommie Ingram, Erin's father, described his daughter's arm after the attack.
Several neighborhood children said the same dogs had bit them before, but on March 9, 2010, they were loose and attacked Erin.
"They were biting me on my arms and on my ankles," Erin Ingram told the jury. "I was screaming for help."
Dore said the girl's sister and mother sobbed in the courtroom most of the time Erin testified.
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Neighbors said they could not get the dogs to stop biting and shaking her the night of the attack. Then the police came.
"I remember one of the other dogs tried to get the police, and the police shot it and the other dog ran started running in the street," Erin said.
Her father had to tell her they removed her forearm.
"He said they couldn't save it," Erin said.
"She's just outside, just outside. A happy person happy go lucky person," Tommie Ingram said about his daughter.
Erin was hospitalized two months. Her father said he lost count of the number of surgeries after about 10.
The question for the jurors, though, is whether the defendant was responsible for those dogs, or someone else was.
When asked if she still had nightmare about the incident, Erin replied, "Yeah."
The defense put on witnesses suggesting the defendant didn't know these dogs were dangerous or getting out.
They expect two or three more witnesses Friday morning. They expect the case to go to the jury by the afternoon.