Anything is paws-ible with a dog by your side.
A dog rescued a man from the sea after he spotted him struggling in the water and barked non-stop to alert its owner.
On Saturday evening, a man, in his mid-50s, fell from a tender, a small transport boat, near Royal Clarence Marina in Gosport.
He was swept 300m (985ft) towards Millennium Bridge, due to stormy conditions and a strong tide.
When the dog walker saw her dog would not stop barking near the bridge alerting her to his calls for help, she then rang 999.
She said Poppy, a black cockapoo “just suddenly started barking, when she stopped I could hear somebody shouting for help so I called the coastguard.”
“My husband had a flashlight and shone it out but we couldn’t see anything – we could just hear him calling.”
She said when the coast guard arrived: “They asked us to keep the torch shining and they went out looking for him.”
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous added: “We were just so relieved to hear he had been rescued.
“It was just fortunate that we were there at that time. – how frightened he must have been.”
She added that after returning home Poppy was “spoilt with treats – and we’ve started calling her Lassie!”
The coastguard sent a marine police unit, coastguard rescue team and independent lifeboat service Gosport and Fareham Inshore Lifeboat Service (GAFIRS).
The man, found clinging to a post in the water, was pulled on to the police boat and treated for hypothermia by an ambulance crew.
GAFIRS coxswain James Baggott said: “He was incredibly lucky. Being in the water for 30 minutes at this time of year, in a storm force gale with the sea temperature as it is, he was very lucky to survive.
“He was swept away from the tender and left clinging to the pile – if the dog walker hadn’t raised the alarm the consequences could have been very different.”
Source – BBC
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