Hollywood Man Reunited With His Dog Lost In Car Crash

HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA.com) — Tom Deters can't help but get emotional when he thinks about losing his dog, Zen.

Early Saturday morning, he and the pit-bull mix were headed north on Interstate 5 in the Santa Clarita area, where a car next to him blew a tire and came right at him.

"She just hit. It was almost like a cop doing a pit maneuver. As soon as she hit me, I started to...I just went like this, I just went rolling," Deters recalled.

The impact of the collision sent his car straight in the center divider. His 18-month-old dog was ejected from the passenger seat and was nowhere to be found near the crash site.

"I knew I was fine. It just didn't matter. I was like - Zen's gone," he said.

A frantic search took Deters to an animal shelter and the streets of Castaic, but still no Zen.

So Deters posted an emotional plea for help on Facebook. "Within a few hours, I was getting texts and the views," he said.

He told CBS2's Rachel Kim that pet finder groups - PawBoost and Lost and Found Pets of SCV - helped spread the word.

Within hours, he got a call from someone at a gas station in Castaic telling him that "I've got your dog."

"He's magically unscathed going out of the car. He lands magically in the pitch dark on eight lanes of traffic. It's a total God moment," said the dog owner, who rescued Zen a year ago.

He was overwhelmed with gratitude to those who brought his pet back.

"I want to say thank you to everybody that helped - every shared text, every view, every kind comment, every thought, everything," Deters said.