After the incident, police brought Philip's grandfather, Martin Sheriff, 69, to the hospital, where for the past two days, he has visited - and talked with - Philip as he lay sedated.
"The nurse told me he could hear," said the elder Sheriff, who brought his fiancee with him.
"Grandpa and Grandma are here, they told him.
" 'Don't worry, you'll be OK," said Grandma.
"I was bitter," said the elder Sheriff, a retired teacher and principal, who also worked with the disabled. "I was afraid he was going to lose his life, or his right arm.
"His so-called friends went away with the pit bulls who mangled his arm so badly and left him bleeding.
"A good Samaritan, Brian Winn, saw Philip in the field and put his jacket under his head and was talking to him until the ambulance took him to the hospital," he added.
The young Surgal told police he and Philip were walking the dogs on leashes across the baseball diamond at Whitehall Commons on Wakeling Street near Jackson.
Suddenly, the leash broke as Surgal was trying to restrain the muscle-bound "Brownie," a one-year-old brown male pit bull who weighed at least half as much as the boy, said Detective Bob Conn, of Northeast Detectives.
Brownie took off. Instinctively, Philip chased the dog, even though he was still holding onto the leash of Mamas, a female pit bull, white with brown spots.
"I told him not to run," Surgal told police. "They'll bite you."
"But he kept running," added Surgal, clad in a large plaid overcoat as he stopped playing in the snow outside his house to talk with the Daily News.
The two dogs began fighting with each other, then turned on Philip, Conn said.
The ferocious attack unfolded quickly. "He screamed, 'Help! Help!' " Surgal said, mimicking his pal's high-pitched shrieks.
"I hit the dog," he said. But the dogs wouldn't let go. "Then I said, 'I'll get some help.' "
