EASTHAMPTON — After a harrowing dog chase Monday, Alicia DiPietro says that she is glad that her teacup poodle is recovering, but remains nervous to take her out again.

DiPietro was out walking her dog, Chiffron, Monday morning in the area of Williston Northampton School when a pit bull came seemingly out of nowhere and attacked.

Chiffron managed to escape the other dog’s attempts to bite her by rolling away, but then sprinted away from both the dog and DiPietro, who was left with no choice but to chase her down.

“It wanted to kill her,” she said. “I didn’t hear it at all, my dog just all of a sudden lunged toward the street.”

DiPietro ran after Chiffron, who kept going even after the pit bull had given up the chase, and lost a shoe in her panic. She could not keep up, though, and thought she would lose her.

“My dog was just totally in instinct mode,” she said.

Chiffron was saved, however, by a car of four people DiPietro called “angels,” who stopped and cornered her to make sure she didn’t bolt into the street again or onto a dangerous nearby bridge.

Monica Theroux, one of the passengers in the car, said that she and her husband are new to the area, and they were lost on the way to get dinner when they saw DiPietro running strangely and screaming as she went after the little poodle. They decided on the spot that they had to stop and help.

“We noticed this woman who was running down the street, kind of like she was running for her life,” she said.

“I couldn’t believe the number of people who just drove right by,” she added. “I knew this was the right thing to do.”

Together, Theroux, her husband Dan, and their friends Bridgette O’Connor and Stacy Martel headed Chiffron off at the bridge, and Martel managed to pick the little dog up before she fell through the bridge’s rail slats.

Theroux said that Chiffron was shaking with fear, and DiPietro was crying hysterically when she caught up to them.

“I just felt so terrible for her,” said Theroux.

The four helped DiPietro find her lost shoe and gave her a ride home. DiPietro says that amazingly, and thanks to her helpers, Chiffron was not seriously injured in the ordeal.

“She’s doing wonderfully,” she said. “I have no idea what would have happened if they hadn’t showed up.”

DiPietro says she is “so grateful” that Theroux and the others showed up. Although she is still very wary of taking Chiffron out again (and of going jogging in the area of the attack herself), she is not going to report the incident to the police.

Chiffron, she says, is a rescue dog, and she knows that animals often only display certain behaviors because of their treatment at the hand of their owner.

“I’m an animal lover, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to that pit bull,” she said.