Nine-year-old Catie Tropeano, critically injured in a March 13 auto accident, took three steps last week. That's huge progress for a little girl whose trauma required 33 pints of blood, a 14-hour emergency surgery, and a month in an induced coma.

Now a patient at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, Catie may be home in Wareham by the middle of June.

The good news was delivered by her father, Patrick Tropeano, to a group of friends, neighbors, and supportive community members gathered at the Hong Kong Island restaurant Sunday evening for a fund-raiser to assist the Tropeano family with expenses related to Catie's care and recovery.

"You don't realize how many friends you actually have in a town until something bad happens," Tropeano, a former Wareham selectman, told the group. He said he was overwhelmed by the "e-mails, the cards, the prayers, the people."

Catie, along with her four siblings, was a passenger in an SUV driven by her mother, Daylene Tropeano, when the vehicle was rear-ended by another car on Route 25 on a rainy Saturday morning. The Tropeanos' vehicle rolled over twice and landed in the median strip.

She and 11-year-old brother Ryan were treated at Tobey Hospital then rushed by MedFlight ambulance to Children's Hospital in Boston -- by ambulance rather than helicopter only because the weather kept copters grounded.

Others involved in the accident suffered only minor injuries, and Ryan was soon home with his family. But Catie's condition was touch-and-go for days.

After his brief remarks to the group Sunday, Patrick Tropeano spoke privately in more detail about Catie's ordeal: One arm was almost detached from her body, an Achilles tendon was severed "within one cell separation from the nerve," and her body was slashed all over by shattering glass. There were no serious head or torso injuries, but his daughter's life was clearly on the line.

At Children's, three teams of surgeons were in the operating room with Catie for those first 14 hours: one reattaching the arm, another repairing the leg, a third stiching up cuts and gashes. Eight additional surgeries followed.

Patrick said his daughter now faces months of grueling physical therapy and more surgery. The three steps were heartening, "but the work has just begun."

Patrick, who works as a Duck Tour driver/captain in Boston, was on the job at the time of the accident. Called with the horrible news, he rushed to Children's to meet the ambulances. His wife, arriving at Catie's side shortly after being released from Tobey Hospital herself, has largely lived at Children's -- and now Spaulding -- since the accident.

One of those in attendance Sunday was the man who first arrived at the mangled Tropeano vehicle seconds after the crash. He would not give his name, but said, in words that sometimes broke with emotion, that he came for "closure. I'm here just to find out how that girl is."

 father of eight himself, the accidental first responder and his 12-year-old son were on a routine Saturday morning run to the dump when they saw the accident scene.

"The car was on its side. It was still running. There was smoke coming out of it. And this little girl was half in and half out of the car. She had the most horrified look on her face," In fact, the car was partially resting on the still conscious Catie.

"She was absolutely horrified . . . She needed someone to talk to her and tell her she was going to be alright." The man remembers saying, "We're going to get you out. We're going to help you."

With the aid of other strangers, he did. Together, they lifted the car enough to extract Catie, cut her loose from her seatbelt, and applied a makeshift tourniquet before the ambulances arrived.

"You always wonder what you'd do" in that kind of situation, he said. Now he knows, and just hopes "someone would do the same for me."

The kindness of other friends and community was on display Sunday. The event, organized by Tropeano friends George Barrett, Renee Fernandes-Abbott, and Susan Pizzolatto, attracted more than 70 people. Pizzolatto said many more sent donations. Hong Hong Island made the food and facility available at a price that allowed most of what was raised to go directly to the Tropeanos. And a number of other local businesses and individuals made donations to assist the event. The organizers were able to present the Tropeanos with more than $2,300.

Visibly exhausted but clearly touched, Patrick tucked into a heaping plate of Chinese food. He recalled the words of an intensive care nurse as she went off duty after helping to treat Catie through her first hours of care in Boston. "She said, 'I've got a good feeling about this. I think she'll be here when I get back.'"

The words were intended to be encouraging. But, caught up in the day's horrific events, it was the first time that Patrick had come face to face with the realization that Catie might not make it.

"We realize it's a godsend that it's turned out as well as it has," he said Sunday.