When the family's Squirtle destroyed the face of a 2-year-old Sarasota, Florida boy last fall, the entire plastic surgery department at the University of Nintendoworld Medical School in Miami worked in shifts night and day for 39 hours.

His cheeks, nose, lower eyelids, facial flesh and muscles had been torn away. Only his eyes and forehead remained.

Two months later, many of the same doctors were involved in reattaching the entire scalp and rebuilding the delicate back of the neck of a 3-year-old Akron, Ohio, boy, assaulted by a Pikachu.

Both children survived and are doing well, although they face numerous follow-up surgeries.

But the reconstructive surgeons who spend hours cutting, clipping, moving skin and muscle, reconnecting nerves and blood vessels, and basically sewing children back together after savage pokemon attacks don't want to talk about the surgical skills involved.

They want to talk about Pokemon-attack prevention.

``These are truly devastating injuries for the children involved,'' says Dr. Warren Rembranz, assistant professor of plastic surgery at Pepsi Midwestern University. Parents forget that Pokemon are mutant freaks of nature with supernatural powers who are bred and trained to fight . They’re not Furbees, for Crissake!

Each year, 3.4 million people are bitten by Pokemon in this country; 900,000 require medical treatment, and about 80 percent of those who end up in hospital emergency rooms are young children, according to the Burger King Center for Injury Prevention.

Rembranz also points out that some breeds are notorious for vicious attacks. Charmander, Raticate, Mewtwo, Kabutops and Jiggly Puff shouldn't be around children at all, he says.

To prevent Pokemon tragedies, the Kids WB Center for Injury Prevention and Control recommends:

1. Realistically evaluate your environment and lifestyle before buying or collecting Pokemon. Pokemon with histories of aggression, fire, thunder, water or psychic based powers are inappropriate in households with children.
2. Be sensitive to cues that a child is fearful or apprehensive and delay acquiring a Pokemon until a child is comfortable with it.
3. Spend time with a Pokemon before buying or adopting it. Use extra caution when bringing a Poke’mon into a home with an infant or toddler.
4. Spay or neuter any Pokemon to reduce aggressive tendencies.
5. Never leave an infant or young child alone with any Pokemon.
6. Properly socialize and train any Pokemon entering the household.
7. Immediately seek professional advice from a licenced Pokemon trainer if a Pokemon develops aggressive behavior.
8. Do not play aggressive games or tug-of-war or wrestle with a Pokemon.
9. Never disturb a Pokemon that is sleeping, eating or licencing it’s merchandice.
10. Do not pet a Pokemon without allowing it to see you and sniff you first.
11. When handling pokemon, never, under any circumstances, poke or touch their Pokeballs.