Pit Bull Attack VIDEO: Dog Mauls Young Girl On The Street In The Bronx (GRAPHIC)

A pit bull sprinted across a Bronx street and attacked a young girl on Sunday, as shown in horrifying surveillance video, CBS New York reported.

The footage shows the girl, said to be 4 or 6, being thrashed about like a chew toy before good samaritans converge on the animal to pull it off. Eduardo Candelier helped. He told CBS the dog was going for her face first. In a segment by NBC New York (seen below), which did not identify the type of dog, Candelier said, "The girl was crying, she was going crazy."

The bystanders' quick work may have spared the unidentified girl, who was walking with her grandmother, serious injury or worse. She was released from the hospital with minor puncture wounds, according to reports. The dog's owner received a summons for leaving the dog off-leash, and the canine remained in his care.

According to DogBites.org, a group that advocates the banning of pit bulls, pit bulls accounted for 151 of the 251 dog-bite deaths in the U.S. between 2005 and 2012. A 2011 New York Post report said pit bulls accounted for 28 percent of attacks in the city.

In 2009, New York City barred pit bulls and other powerful dogs from public housing, the New York Daily News reported. City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. told the Daily News that the dogs "have no place in a confined urban space" and has lobbied for wider bans in New York.

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.