HAMILTON—Tara Young woke up to frantic banging on her front door and her daughter screaming that someone was trying to kill their neighbour.

“I flew down the stairs as fast as I could,” said the Hamilton mom who lives on Rymal Road East across from Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School in new suburban neighbourhood in the city’s south-east.

She cries when she describes the shocking scene she found in her doorway on at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

The teen from a couple houses down was terrified for her life and holding a 22-month-old girl with what appeared to be multiple stab wounds. She also had with her a preschool aged boy who was not injured.

“When I got down the stairs, the female was in the house holding the baby (that was) just covered in blood and a diaper,” said Young. “She just kept yelling, ‘He’s trying to kill us.’”

The traumatized family remembers the toddler saying, “I’ve got boo-boos.”

She was stable Wednesday after being rushed to McMaster Children’s Hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

A 16-year-old boy was arrested by Hamilton police about eight hours later after barricading himself inside the teen girl’s house.

The family’s eight-month-old Rottweiler, named Prada, was found dead in the home. Police believe the boy killed the dog.

Taylor said the teen girl talked about trying to rescue Prada from the attack.

“She wanted to run back and go get her and I said, ‘We can’t,’” said Young. “She was so worried about her.”

Young’s 12-year-old daughter Kyra Payne was the first to wake up when the teen came to the door.

Kyra thought the pounding was her older sister upstairs, but when she got up to investigate, she discovered it was the teen from the family that had moved in down the street about two months before.

“I turned the corner and I saw her screaming and I ran right away,” Kyra said. “She was in a panic with the baby in her arms. I recognized her right away.”

Kyra couldn’t believe what she found when she opened the door.

“I had a bunch of red flags going off in my head,” Kyra said. “What is happening here?”

Young was also woken up by the banging but thought it was their puppy until she heard her daughter yelling for help.

“I heard her scream, ‘Someone is trying to kill her,’” Young said.

She tried to calm the teenager, who Young said is the children’s aunt and lives with her sister.

“I said, ‘You’re safe, you’re safe,’” Taylor said. “She was just freaking out and asking for 911, which is understandable.”

At the same time, Young was trying to assess the toddler’s injuries. She said the baby had scratches on her face, back and under her arm, as well as stab wounds in multiple places.

“I grabbed towels and tried to put pressure on the deep wounds,” she said. “It was everywhere.”

She said the toddler wasn’t crying.

“She was very quiet and not making any noise or sound,” Young said. “She just wanted to be held.”

Police said the boy does not live at the house, but is known to the family.

“I guess they were together earlier in the day and he was fine and then he came back,” Young said about the teen girl and the boy. “I don’t know exactly what happened but it escalated.”

The toddler was stabbed during the dispute before the teen girl managed to flee with the children.

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Young said the teen flagged down a car on Rymal Road and intended to get in. But she fled to the neighbour’s instead when the boy, who was giving chase, turned his attention to the car.

“She made the great escape over to here,” Young said.

Her family didn’t hesitate to help despite the potential danger.

“I really wasn’t thinking, I was just trying to deal with the situation and make sure everyone was OK and safe,” she said.

“You always should help out anyone you can. We’ve been in bad situations before with our lives and if it wasn’t for others opening their arms and helping us.”

Young, along with another neighbour, expressed shock at a violent attack happening on their street.

“This is a very quiet area,” she said. “That was the main reason we moved up the Mountain.”

Young has never met the mother of the children, but she had got to to know Prada the dog since the family moved in.

“She was cute,” Taylor said. “She was super friendly”

Hamilton police Const. Jerome Stewart would not comment on the nature of the toddler’s injuries, the presence of a weapon or other details about how the young girl was injured.

A source not authorized to speak on the record confirmed to Hamilton Spectator reporter Nicole O’Reilly that a knife was used.

The boy went back inside the home and refused to come out when police arrived, the source said.

The boy cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Rymal was closed between Trinity Church Road and Dakota Boulevard — a stretch of more than half a kilometre — during the incident. The road reopened shortly before noon.

Police moved “slowly and methodically,” said Stewart, adding that the goal was to safely remove the 16-year-old boy without anyone else getting hurt.

Shortly before 11:30 a.m., tactical officers from the emergency response unit breached the door and went inside. The 16-year-old was the only person in the home.

He was taken by ambulance to hospital for assessment. Once medically cleared, he was expected to be taken to the police station for questioning.

“I’m just happy the baby is OK,” said Young.

With files from Nicole O’Reilly