PROVIDENCE — Trooper Brendan Doyle was wheeled out of Rhode Island Hospital yesterday, under the warm summer sun that he hadn’t felt in three weeks and two days, and gave the thumbs up to the applause of family, friends and hospital staff.

He’d nearly died from severe head injuries after being punched to the pavement, police say, by an alleged reckless driver last month. But his steady recovery since then has surprised his doctors and overjoyed his family and friends, who call him “miracle boy.” He was now on his way to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston.

His mother, Maureen Adams, spoke for him as she tearfully thanked everyone for their support, from the firefighters and doctors who saved his life, to the state police who visited around the clock, and well-wishers who sent hundreds of cards that papered his room in the neuro-intensive-care unit.

But one question could be answered only by Doyle.

Will you come back and be a Rhode Island state trooper?

“Yes,” he said hoarsely, giving the thumbs up again and touching off cheers and laughter.

The 25-year-old trooper, nicknamed “Buzz” by his family for the way he used to buzz around the house as a toddler, had followed in the path of two uncles when he joined the state police in 2005. A marathon runner like his father, six-time Ocean State champion Robert Doyle, the young trooper earned a reputation as a hard-charger. He risked injury several times — when a drunken-driver slammed into his cruiser in 2005, when a motorcyclist he was trying to stop drove at him several months ago, and then, on June 16, when he tried to stop a driver in downtown Providence.

The police say that Doyle was off duty and out with friends when they saw a black BMW jump the curb and veer into the late-night crowd on Pine Street. Doyle ran after the car, yelling that he was a state trooper and ordering the driver to stop. When the car was pinned in traffic, Doyle ran to the driver’s window with his badge out, the police said. But the driver, James Proulx, 36, of Smithfield, got out of the car and punched the trooper in the face, the police said. Doyle fell backward and hit his head, lying unconscious and badly bleeding as Proulx sped off.

No one knew if Doyle would survive. Yet as the man charged with assaulting him sat in a cell at the Adult Correctional Institutions, Doyle began to regain his strength.

A few days after the attack, he gave his family the thumbs up and squeezed his mother’s hand. Last Monday, he took his first steps with assistance. On the Fourth of July, he spoke for the first time since the assault. Yesterday morning, he sat up in his hospital bed and saluted his boss, state police superintendent Col. Brendan Doherty, in proper military fashion. “I’m just ecstatic over the progress,” Doherty said. “Hopefully, we’ll see him back in boots and breeches soon.”

He remembers everyone, his family said. He knows who he is. But all he remembered about the assault was leaving McFadden’s restaurant that night and turning a corner.

The incident led to an outpouring of support that astonished Doyle’s family and his fellow troopers.

Hundreds of get-well cards covered the hospital walls like wallpaper, said his stepmother, Lori Doyle. State police from all over New England called to check on him. The young trooper was visited by the governor, the attorney general, and the city’s mayor, as well as police officers, troopers and friends going back to childhood. Colonel Doherty and Maj. Steven O’Donnell visited daily, while troopers kept up a round-the-clock vigil. “I am learning that the state police are a brotherhood,” Maureen Adams said.

Fellow runners visited Doyle and told his family that his training as a marathoner would help him survive. Strangers sought to offer reassurance and prayers. Some who’d suffered head injuries, or who had relatives with injuries, arrived at the intensive care unit to tell the family their own stories about recovery and hope.

Even a man whom Doyle had arrested came to visit, said Lori Doyle. The man told the trooper that he wanted to thank him, that the arrest had changed his life and made him realize it was time to grow up, Lori Doyle said.

“He said, ‘I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to thank you,’ ” she remembered. In a whispery voice, Doyle said yes — stay out of trouble.

Troopers out on patrol, on work details, and at events, were peppered with questions about Doyle from people they encountered. The troopers would pull over speeders or make an arrest, and the person would ask: Hey, how’s that trooper doing?

“Wherever you go, everyone asks about him,” said Trooper Ernest Adams, Doyle’s roommate and best friend. “It’s a small state, but it’s gone beyond the state.”

After the ambulance finally drove off to Boston yesterday, with Doyle and his mother, younger brother Brian couldn’t stop smiling. Doyle’s badge number 47 was shaved in his hair.

“He’s everyone’s role model. He’s a hero in the state,” 14-year-old Brian said of his big brother. “He’s the man.”

amilkovi@projo.com