Kirstie and Colby Bennard with children Hollace and Lilly. The children could not be helped after the pit bulls attacked them.

DLNews Staff:

The dogs were as much a part of the family as the children. But suddenly, the pit bulls went after the little ones.

Millington (U.S. state of Tennessee) - In the USA, two toddlers were bitten to death by their family dogs. The children's mother was taken to hospital seriously injured.

Kirstie Jane Bennard (30) tried for ten minutes to drag her five-month-old son Hollace Dean and her two-year-old daughter Lilly Jane away from the pit bulls - without success. According to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office on Twitter, both children were pronounced dead at the scene.

According to the sheriff's office, emergency responders were called to the home in Millington, a suburb of Memphis in the U.S. state of Tennessee, around 3:30 p.m.  Wednesday. It is unknown if Colby Bennard, Kirstie's husband and father of the children, was home at the time of the attack. Hollace and Lilly were the couple's only children.

"She hasn't stopped trying to save her little ones," Jeff Gibson, a family member, wrote on Facebook. The mother's condition was stable, but she had "countless bite wounds all over her body, including her face," he wrote. Her arms and legs are entirely bandaged, he said. Her injuries, according to Gibson, "will leave no permanent damage other than a heart that will never heal."

The two pit bulls, Cheech and Mia, had been part of the family for more than eight years and had never been noticed for aggressive behavior, Kelsey Canfield, a friend of the mother, told "Fox News Digital." Until Wednesday.

It is unclear why the pit bulls suddenly attacked the children and how the attack went down. The investigation is ongoing. Autopsies of the children are also pending. The dogs have been turned over to authorities and will likely be euthanized.