“I heard a big bang and a howl — and the hair on the back of my neck stood right up.”

Peter Rogaishio knew that howl: It was that of his 3-year-old Doberman, Thor — and he knew something wasn’t right.

After getting back to their Holliston, Massachusetts, home from the park one night last week, Thor had stayed outside in the yard while Rogaishio stepped inside to light a fire in the fireplace. When Rogaishio ran out to check on Thor, he saw that he had been struck by two cars in front of the house and was bleeding out into the street.

“I ran from the backyard to the street and there was blood everywhere,” Rogaishio told The Dodo. ”I called 911 and the police showed up. They radioed animal control but they were held up somewhere else.”

Rogaishio waited for almost 20 minutes until he knew what he had to do. He wrapped his best friend up in a tarp and placed him in the back of his truck.

“There was no way I was waiting any longer,” Rogaishio said. “He was dying.”

Rogaishio sped through the left lanes and weaved in and out of heavy New England rush-hour traffic to get his dog to the nearest animal hospital.

But then, he passed a police cruiser.

The cop switched on his sirens and followed Rogaishio, who didn’t stop, considering his emergency. The high-speed pursuit continued for a mile and a half, until police ahead set up a roadblock right in his path.

“I knew I wasn’t getting any further, and at this point, the cops had their guns drawn and were yelling to put the truck in park,” Rogaishio said. “I got out with my hands up, by that time I had Thor’s blood all over me, and just kept shouting, ‘My dog, my dog! He’s in the back and he got hit!’”

The officers looked in and saw the dog — whom Rogaishio said “didn’t even look alive.”

After the mile-plus, high-speed chase, police were compelled to arrest Rogaishio, so he was handcuffed and taken to jail — while another officer jumped into the truck and rushed Thor to the veterinary hospital to get him the help he needed.

“Not knowing what was going on with Thor, it felt like an eternity,” Rogaishio said.

After an hour in jail, Rogaishio was released to a friend who paid his $40 bail. The police decided not to press charges against Rogaishio, considering the unusual circumstances, and only required that he take a safe-driving course.

Rogaishio rushed to Thor’s side at the veterinary hospital, where he and his wife, Unice, waited for around five hours as vets stabilized the dog. With a stroke of luck, Thor survived the accident and was transported to a different animal hospital for an eight-hour surgery.

In all, both of the dog’s front legs had compound fractures, and one of his femurs had shattered. Surgeons added five metal plates total throughout the injuries — and now, almost a week later, vets are able to get him to stand with the help of a specialized harness.

“I don’t know how he lived,” Rogaishio said. “To be able to see him stand again is just a miracle. My wife and I don’t have any kids, so Thor is like our child. He sleeps with us and goes everywhere with us.”

In the midst of the financial stress of needing to pay an estimated $20,000 veterinary bill, another unsuspected glimmer of hope emerged. A neighbor — one whom Rogaishio had only met on the day of the accident when she happened to be driving by the scene and stopped to help — had started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to cover the bills.

“She lives all the way on the other end of the street and has three dogs,” Rogaishio said. “Just as we had gotten Thor into the back of my truck that day, a woman stuck her head in the window and was crying her eyes out. I told her, ‘Please, just pray.’ It was her — and she showed up the next day at my house with a plant and some zucchini bread and told me she wanted to do to help us.”

In just three days, the campaign raised over $11,000 and donations continue to come in from all over the country. Donors are flooding the comments with photos of their pets, wishing Thor a speedy recovery and offering encouraging thoughts for his family.

Now that Thor is out of the intensive care unit and recovering with pain medicine and antibiotics, vets will continue monitoring him and changing his many bandages. They are also making sure he’s helped onto his feet multiple times per day and is rolled over into different positions to maintain healthy blood flow while lying down.

Rogaishio hopes his best friend will be able to come home soon, and looks forward to helping him regain strength again when he is healed up enough to begin physical therapy.

“Every time I step inside his room at the vet, he starts flopping like a fish trying to get up because he’s so excited to see me,” Rogaishio said. “I just sit with him and calm him down until he eventually falls asleep, and then I slip out very quietly so I don’t rile him up again. Despite everything, he’s still in great spirits.”