Hank made it out of the burning vehicle after a close call (Picture: AP)
Hank made it out of the burning vehicle after a close call (Picture: AP)

A dog ‘in a bad way’ has been dramatically saved from a burning car in the USA.

With smoke pouring out of a SUV in Colorado, a panicking owner screams to police that his pet is inside the vehicle.

An officer then smashes the back window of a grey Ford and eventually lifts frightened Hank to safety, on January 22.  

Footage shows the poor animal then being carried to a snow bank – and he later made a full recovery.

Now a sheriff’s deputy is being praised for taking action to rescue the stricken animal south of Denver, in Castle Rock.

Douglas County Deputy Michael Gregorek’s body camera video shows him arriving on the scene as smoke pours from the driver’s side window of the SUV.

The owner frantically yells that Hank is somewhere inside the locked vehicle.

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Mr Gregorek then uses his baton to smash a side window and then the rear window.

The owner tries to get Hank out but struggles, before the officer steps in and lifts him to the snowbank.

Mr Gregorek said: ‘I just went in there and grabbed on.

(Hank’s) body had already kind of started to tense up, so I knew he was really in a bad way.

An image taken from Douglas County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Gregorek's body camera video shows a dog in the back of a vehicle in Castle Rock, Colo., on Jan. 22, 2022. Gregorek is being praised for smashing the windows of a burning SUV and rescuing a frightened dog in a neighborhood south of Denver. (Douglas County Sheriff's Office via AP)
The police officer used a baton to smash the window (Picture: AP)
An image taken from Douglas County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Gregorek's body camera video shows a dog running after escaping a vehicle in Castle Rock, Colo., on Jan. 22, 2022. Gregorek is being praised for smashing the windows of a burning SUV and rescuing a frightened dog in a neighborhood south of Denver. (Douglas County Sheriff's Office via AP)
The dog was then put on a snow bank (Picture: AP)

‘Nothing else really mattered at that point other than getting Hank out of the car’.

A neighbour told the deputy that his wife was a vet – but by the time she got home, Hank was already sprinting around and ready to play, seemingly recovered.

‘I’m a dog parent’, Mr Gregorek said.

‘My only child is my dog, so I would have done the same thing, whether it be baby, human, dog, cat.

‘A life is a life, and you kind of treat it as such in a situation like that’.

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