A Good Samaritan from Massachusetts is being praised for his quick thinking after he stepped up to save the family of a police officer as well as their dog after another dog attacked them.

Nahant Police Officer Timothy Furlong was on patrol when his panicked 11 year-old son called him to say that their family’s dog had been attacked by another canine in the Boston suburb of Lynn. Timothy immediately rushed home, only to find that a brave stranger had stepped up to save both his dog and his family.

Timothy’s wife, son and daughter had been out walking their German shepherd Lucy when a pit bull who had escaped from a nearby home clamped down on their dog for a full three minutes as the Furlongs looked on in horror. At that same moment, O.P. Miller happened to be driving by on his way to the gym, and he jumped out of his vehicle to help as soon as he saw the attack.

“I could hear a young girl screaming bloody murder,” O.P. said. “When I got up to corner, I locked eyes with (the girl) and could see the tears pouring down her face. I spun around and rushed out and grabbed the dog. They were both on their hind legs. I grabbed on his collar. I was hitting him, scratching him and poking him. He was locked on good.”

O.P. had no experience with dealing with a violent dog, but he said that in this moment, that did not matter.

“When you see a little girl screaming and crying in the street you stop,” he said. “That’s pretty simple. My adrenaline was rushing.”

O.P. was finally able to get the pit bull off Lucy when he started twisting and yanking on its collar, essentially choking the dog to get it to stop. Timothy could not have been more grateful to this Good Samaritan for helping his family.

“We put ourselves in danger as police officers to help people, to have people do that for your own family, it’s overwhelming,” he said. Though O.P. showed Timothy the good side of humanity, he said that there were negative takeaways from this as well.

“The thing that bothered me the most, I was told my son was trying to wave down passing vehicles and it took several cars to pass before this one gentleman stopped,” he lamented. “It’s heartbreaking to think about a young boy waving his arms asking for help and no one helped. I just knew they needed help and I knew I could do something.”

Timothy did have the chance to shake O.P.’s hand that day, and is planning to officially honor him for his bravery sometime in the future. Find out more about this in the video below.