Tinsley, a one-year-old Shiloh Shepherd, ran down a highway on the New Hampshire border with Vermont late on Monday, prompting motorists to alert the highway patrol.

When police officers spotted the dog and tried to catch it, she kept running and led them into Vermont, where the officers spotted a gap in the guard rail and discovered a badly damaged pickup truck that had rolled over.

Two people, one of whom was Tinsley’s owner, had been thrown from the vehicle and were already suffering from the onset of hypothermia.

“It quickly became apparent that Tinsley led law enforcement to the crash site and injured occupants,” New Hampshire police said on their Facebook page.

“They could tell the dog was trying to show them something because she kept trying to get away from them but didn’t run away totally,” police officer Daniel Baldassarre told a local news channel.

“It was kind of, ‘follow me, follow me’. To see the guardrail damaged and to look down to where the dog was looking, they were almost in disbelief.”

Baldassarre compared it to a real-life “Lassie” story, “where the people are in distress and the dog goes and gets help and brings them right to where the person is”.

As emergency rescue workers began their medical care of the injured, the dog “sat there nice and calm right next to its owner”, said captain Jack Hedges of the Hartford fire department.

Tinsley’s human, Cam Laundry, was not seriously hurt in the crash, and said the heroic hound would be rewarded with venison for showing such intelligence and devotion.

“She’s my little guardian angel,” he later told reporters. “It’s a miracle she had that kind of intelligence to do what she did.”