The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the boy’s father raced outside and found his son, who was being dragged several meters away by a wild dingo that officials say crept inside the van.

Paramedics detailed the father’s heroic effort, in which he retrieved his child while fighting off several other dingoes nearby. The 14-month-old was alive but battered, suffering from a fractured skull in addition to lacerations across the back of his head and neck, ABC News reported.

He was flown to a hospital and is in stable condition.

“If it wasn’t for the parents fighting off the dingo he could have had much more severe injuries,” rescuer Frank Bertoli told news.com.au.