Watch: Houston man rescues dog when leash gets shut in elevator doors

Johnny Mathis, 27, of Houston, shared the scary video on Twitter, which he called an "intense moment to say the least," KRIV reported.

Video from the apartment complex’s surveillance camera shows Mathis exiting an elevator on the ground floor of the building while a woman and her dog were about to enter it, the television station reported. Mathis noticed the dog was lagging behind the woman while still attached to the leash as the elevator doors closed.

"When she got on, I was looking at the dog, because it was a cute dog," Mathis told CNN. "I noticed the leash was kinda long but I didn't think it wasn't going to make it on the elevator or anything."

In the 38-second video clip, Mathis rushes over to grab the dog and tries to remove its leash, KRIV reported.

"As soon as the door shut she was screaming," Mathis told KRIV. "There was nothing she could have done. She is new to the building so I think she wasn't expecting it to shut so fast.

“I felt terrible for her. It was an honest mistake.”

Mathis said he had yelled, “Hey, your dog!” to the woman when he noticed the Pomeranian didn’t enter the elevator.

"Instinct just kicked in, I just grabbed that leash," Mathis told CNN. "There was so much fur, that's why it took me a bit to get that lever off of the collar and when I did, I let go, you could see that leash just shoot off to the top of the elevator."

Mathis said the owner was thankful when she returned to the ground floor but could not stop crying, CNN reported.

“I think she just said ‘thank you’ and we hugged but she was just so overcome with emotion,” Mathis told the network.