LORAIN — A 5-year-old Lorain boy is home and healing after a pit bull attacked him and then ran off.

Daymeon Banks had been playing with his own puppy Thursday about 3:30 p.m. in the front yard of his baby sitter’s Livingston Avenue home when a passing pit bull lunged at him.

His 11-year-old friend, Ashley Garrettson, was standing nearby and said Daymeon tried to protect his own dog when the pit bull latched onto his face.

“He kept screaming ‘Let me go! Let me go!’ ” Ashley said. “He finally punched the dog in the eye, and it ran off. Daymeon was crying and bleeding everywhere.”

The dog was gone by the time the baby sitter, Misty Stump, ran around from the backyard, where she had been during the attack.

The sight of a gaping wound near the boy’s ear, she said, was as terrifying as the thought of the attack itself.

“I just feel terrible,” she said. “But it happened so fast. One minute they were playing and the next thing I knew, Daymeon was bleeding.”

Lorain police took pictures of the wounds and noted “several large tears in his flesh and multiple puncture marks from the bite,” according to the police report.

Daymeon was taken to Community Health Partners in Lorain and later transferred to Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland where he underwent minor surgery.

His mother, Shannon Banks, said Daymeon is still in a lot of pain and will undergo more treatment next week.

“He was very scared,” she said. “But he’s handling it like a champ for a 5-year-old little boy.”

Police have been unable to locate the pit bull — a breed that has been responsible for five serious dog bites in the city this year.

Lorain City Council backed off of enacting a law last year that would’ve required owners to properly confine pit bulls in addition to limiting households to one pit bull.

Mayor Tony Krasienko said the state would have to step up and make a broader determination of its vicious dog laws if the city is to ever undertake the issue again.

“The pit bull breed has become a problem in Lorain because we have irresponsible owners,” he said. “We have to find a more effective way to make sure the dogs are taken care of.”

Contact Stephen Szucs at 329-7129 or sszucs@chroniclet.com.

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