Dog Saved From Burning Car By Deputy Makes Sure To Thank Him

A fast-acting deputy in Colorado is being praised for his actions after he saved a dog from a burning car. Deputy Michael Gregorek with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office was responding to a call of a vehicle on fire not knowing if the situation was a crime underway or something else.

But as soon as he arrived on scene and saw a man trying to get into the burning SUV, yelling to him that his dog was in the car.

“He starts screaming my dog’s in the car,” Gregorek said of the dog’s parent. “It flipped [the] switch from ‘It’s obviously not a crime’ to ‘Now we have a life.'”

Deputy Gregorek grabbed his baton and began smashing the SUV’s windows. Hank the dog was somewhere in the truck, but because of the thick smoke Deputy Gregorek couldn’t see where the dog was.

But the dog’s owner gestured to the back of the truck calling “Hank, Hank” and ran over. Suddenly the dog stuck his head out, saliva dripping from his mouth. When Hank’s dad couldn’t pull him out, the deputy took over and pulled Hank out to safety.

“I knew he was really in a bad way, and so my thought only at that point was he’s coming out with me, regardless of whatever else might be happening — smoke or fire. Nothing else really mattered at that point other than getting Hank out of the car,” Gregorek said of the moment.

A little time later, after a neighbor, who is a veternarian, checked over Hank, Hank thanked his savior by giving Deputy Gregorek a few licks on his arm. Hank’s dad is greatly relieved that Hank is all right after the frightening ordeal.

Deputy Michael Gregorek explains in more detail what happened with Hank’s rescue in the Facebook video below.