A woman who jumped into a fast-flowing river in Melbourne’s south-west to save her dog has said she believes they were “very lucky” after an emergency rescue.
Dog owner Madi was walking her pooch Minka at an off-leash area near Werribee River on Boxing Day when the dog ran into the fast-flowing water.
Madi said the river, which had recorded about 25 millimetres of rain in between Christmas Day and Boxing Day, was “really full and flowing very rapidly”.
“[Minka’s] never gone in the river before, and she chose [Tuesday] … to decide to go in,” she said.
Madi said she instantly “kicked into mum mode”, running downstream and calling to the staffy-cross-cattle-dog in an attempt to get her to swim towards the shore.
“She sort of went under a bit and I lost my mind,” she said.
It was in that moment she decided to jump in after Minka.
The rescue mission went south when Madi, who said she was a “reasonably confident” swimmer, realised just how deep the river was following recent heavy rainfall.
“The thing that caught me off guard more was the depth, you couldn’t see the bottom and then it kind of went and there was nothing I could hold onto,” she said.
“I could get myself out of there but I couldn’t get her out with me.
“There was no way I could carry her, I couldn’t carry her on my back and it was too deep to touch the bottom.”
The pair found refuge on a small island with a broken tree where they waited for about 15 minutes for a passer-by who could call triple-0.
Emergency services arrived not long after and carried out a technical rescue operation.
“People are generally quite easy to deal with but animals throw another element of problem solving into it,” Victoria Police Acting Sergeant Nicole Bath from said.
“They were definitely dangerous, fast-flowing, deep waters,” Acting Sergeant Justin Ivory, who carried Minka through the water to safety, said.
“People underestimate the force that’s behind it and how hard it can be to combat it.”
Police said they were encouraging everyone to stay safe around all water ways but particularly around floodwaters.
Thunderstorms battered Victoria on Tuesday, with rainfall total exceeding 100mm in parts.
Two people were killed in the state’s east — a woman’s body was found after flash flooding at a campground in Buchan and a man was hit by a falling tree branch in Caringal.
The wild weather was expected to start easing on Wednesday for much of the state, with further flash flooding expected in the east.
(ABC)
