'God Had A Plan,' Says Stranger Who Saved Boy from Vicious Dogs

Ethan Nokes sustained 22 bite wounds, countless bruises and scratches, and other injuries before a stranger heard his cries and saved him from a vicious attack by four Rottweiler dogs. (Screenshot WWTV)

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A Michigan construction worker is crediting divine intervention with putting him in the right place to save an 8-year-old boy from a vicious attack by four Rottweilers late Monday afternoon.

The boy, Ethan Nokes, was was going outside with his brother to play in his great-grandmother’s yard in Gratiot County when the dogs suddenly began tearing into him.

The dogs had torn off the boy’s clothing, and he was half covered in blood by the time Ken Hansen was able to jump the fence and reach him. He and others working on a nearby project had heard the dogs’ aggressive growling and Ethan’s frightened screams.

Hansen told WWTV that he couldn’t stand by and watch without trying to help.

“I got to him. The dog let go. I was hollering. Jordan, his little brother was at the top of the steps screaming at the dogs trying to get them to stop and I grabbed him around the stomach,” Hansen told the TV station. “I tried to keep my body between the dogs and him ... and they were yanking on him trying to get him away from me.”

The Good Samaritan told The Daily News in Greenville there were only seconds to spare.

“They were trying to kill him,” Hansen said. “They were pulling on him in every direction. In another 30 seconds they would have torn him up.”

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Ethan, who was bitten 22 times before Hansen was able to separate him from the dogs, was airlifted to a Grand Rapids hospital, and is now back home with his family. The younger boy was not injured.

“God had a plan for me,” Hansen told the TV station. “The dogs could have ate me. I didn’t care.”

Ethan’s grateful mother, Doris Gifford, says there was “no question” the dogs would’ve killed her son if Hansen hadn’t stepped in.

“I think that God put him there for a reason I have absolute faith in that,” Doris Gifford said. “I don’t know. I don’t have any other explanation other than it’s God’s timing and that’s how things work.”

Gratiot County Animal Control officials have seized the dogs – an adult male and female and their 14-month-old pups – and are recommending they be euthanized.

“This was just a vicious attack. They had his clothes pulled off him and everything,” Animal Control Director Tom Clark told the Greenville newspaper. “They were just pulling on all parts of him. If not for those construction workers nearby, there would have been a different outcome.”

Though Ethan is expected to make a full recovery from his physical wounds, he went through a “pretty horrific ordeal,” Clark said.

“The physical wounds will heal,” Clark told the newspaper. “It’s the mental and emotional wounds that will take the longest.”