- Police bodycam footage released on Thursday captured a Colorado sheriff's deputy saving a trapped dog from a burning SUV.
- Douglas County Deputy Michael Gregorek performed the save on January 22 after smashing the car's windows.
- Video shows the dog's owner desperately trying to help the deputy get the dog, Hank, out of the car.
Police body camera footage released on Thursday by a Colorado county sheriff's department shows the harrowing moments of a local deputy rescuing a trapped dog from a burning car.
Video shows Douglas County Deputy Michael Gregorek arriving on the scene on January 22 in a neighborhood in Castle Rock, Colorado, where smoke is seen pouring from the driver's side window of a Ford SUV, which was apparently locked.
"Dog in the car? Where's it at?" the footage shows Gregorek asking the dog's owner moments before he smashes a passenger window on the driver's side of the car with his retractable baton and peers into the car with his flashlight. He then rushes to the back of the vehicle and smashes the rear window.
Gregorek's bodycam footage shows the dog's owner as he desperately tries to help the deputy pull the dog, Hank, from the car.
"Hank, come on buddy," the man says as he struggles to rescue Hank. "I can't get him."
Gregorek then pulls the dog from the rear window of the SUV, setting the dog down in the snow nearby.
The Douglas County Sheriff's Department posted an interview of the incident with the deputy on Facebook on Thursday.
"He was salivating. You could tell that he was in distress," Gregorek said of the dog. "I just went in there and grabbed on, and his body had already kind of started to tense up, so I knew he was really in a bad way."
The video shows both the deputy and the dog's owner going into coughing fits from the smoke after rescuing Hank. The dog was in good condition after a few minutes outside.
"Nothing else really mattered at that point other than getting Hank out of the car," Gregorek said.
It remains unclear how the fire started.
The Douglas County Sheriff's Department did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.