A 12-year-old boy is in a coma and six dogs have been put down after the child was mauled Friday in Montgomery County.

The boy, dressed in jeans and t-shirt, was on his spring break, riding his bike after lunch. As he rode down a street around the corner from his house, six, mixed-breed dogs ran out from a yard and attacked him, said Montgomery County Sheriff Bubba Nix.

The dogs dragged the boy off his bike and into a ditch, biting his arms and legs, Nix said.

A man and his son drove by and first saw the abandoned bike laying in the road. When they saw the child being attacked in the ditch, Nix said, they rushed out of their vehicle and began fighting off the dogs with hammers and sticks.

The boy was airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center and underwent surgery Sunday. He's currently in a medically induced coma and will likely face several more surgeries and weeks of hospitalization, Nix said.

The owner of the dogs was shocked, Nix said, when she was told about the attack.

"She said they had never done anything like that as long as she had had them," Nix said.

When Nix told her the dogs would have to be euthanized, the owner reportedly told him, "I don't want them back, kill them."

The house did not have a fence and, because the house is in the county, the dogs were allowed to roam free. They were taken to the local veterinarian and euthanized, Nix said. They will be tested for rabies.

The dogs' owner will not be charged with any crime, Nix said. It's unknown what triggered the attack.

Nix said he shudders to think what could have happened if the two passersby hadn't seen the child's bike in the road.

"It could have been worse if Ricky and Jimmy hadn't come by and seen it," he said. "They could've killed him."

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Contact Sarah Fowler at 601-961-7303 or sfowler@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.