Rosie was in bad shape when her people pulled up.

Her tongue had been torn through by her own teeth. Her back left leg torn and twisted. Road rash was scattered throughout her body from the impact of the car that knocked her into the ditch.

Blood from the wound in her mouth covered her face. But she lifted her head and her tail wagged once her owners got out of their car, signaling to them she was alive.

Krypto was worse, separated from his pal Rosie across the road and gone before his best friend Bryce got to say goodbye.

Bryce and his girlfriend, Miranda Smith, came home on May 31 to an empty backyard. Krypto and Rosie had gotten free of the dog pen and cleared the fence. It had happened before.

Both were what their people call pure mutts. Rosie a brownish-black pit bull, black lab cross and Krypto a tan boxer, lab, hound cross with a black muzzle. Bryce’s parents found Krypto tied to a telephone pole when he was just weeks old. He was a housewarming gift for Bryce.

“He was a pure lover,” Bryce said.

Rosie came to the house a few years later through adoption. They were buddies for life from the first time they met, and had decided to go for a run, Bryce said.

“I called dispatch and told them two dogs got out,” Bryce said. Then he, Miranda and several roommates got in their cars to go looking.

“We drove everywhere, not a sign,” Bryce said.

It was around 9:45 p.m. that night when the search party returned home that Lake County Dispatch called to report two dogs had been found north of the Mission Valley Speedway racetrack on Reservoir Road. They told Bryce they knew one was dead.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Bryce told them, “but I’m going to be breaking the speed limit to get there.”

Sheriff’s deputy Levi Read was on the scene, having responded to a passerby’s call that alerted them to the dogs’ location. It was clear the dogs had been hit by a car, but no one saw the accident.

The next part happened fast, and Rosie got the ride of her life.

No more than two minutes after Bryce pulled up, the Ronan ambulance medics who’d been on standby on Pablo pulled up too.

“We had heard on the radio talking about the dogs being hit, (the deputy) mentioned he thought one was alive,” medic Missy Hensley said.

Right away Hensley and her partner, Justin Bartels, saw they could help. Earlier in the day Bartels’ own dog had been injured and he knew there was a veterinarian on call at Southshore Veterinary Service south of Polson. Read called Dr. Uli Rodriques, who agreed to meet the ambulance at the office.

As Bryce stood by, Rosie was lifted onto a stretcher and whisked away.

Inside the ambulance, they gave her oxygen and cleaned out her mouth.

“She stayed calm until we were bringing her into the vet,” Hensley said.

Rodriques began an examination. She found several gashes that had to be stitched. The ligaments in Rosie’s back left leg were torn to pieces and would require surgery.

“It was kind of cute, she actually was tied to a table and they actually rolled the table all into the clinic, I have not had that before,” Uli said.

Hensley and Bartels waited until they knew she’d be OK and headed out to finish the shift with a story to tell: As far as they could tell, that’s the first dog that’d been in their ambulance.

Bryce never got the names of the strangers who’d helped Rosie. He had an awful duty to take care of as Rosie was taken away.

He first wrapped Krypto in the overalls he had in the back of his car.

“They’re my family,” he was thinking. “No matter the cost, I’d empty all my bank accounts to save them.”

He was a part of the family and his final resting place is on family land where Bryce grew up. Bryce dug a grave that night, 5 feet by 4 feet.

“We wrapped him up in his blanket and put him in the ground and very slowly covered him up,” Bryce said.

They marked the grave with a copper cross, and made sure Krypto had his Superman tag, which will always be with him.

“There’s so much I could say about Krypto,” Bryce said. “You’d go out in the backyard and he would just sit in your lap.”

Later that night, Miranda and Bryce checked on Rosie at Southshore. Rodriques performed a complete ligament remodel several days later to repair the back left leg.

Rodriques said last week that Rosie is doing fine, but chances are she won’t ever recover full motion.

 The Smiths are planning on sending a picture of a smiling Rosie to Hensley, Bartels, Read and Rodriques. They can’t express how grateful they are.

After recovering for a month,  the dog lovers who helped so much will be happy to know Rosie is back chasing a Frisbee. She still won’t stand for cats in the yard, although she limps on the injured leg. Bryce could tell she’s been missing Krypto. She’s been cuddling with them more without him around.

But her tail - it’s wagging. She’s ever proud to show it wasn’t harmed a bit in the accident.