Ian and Jennifer Doughty praise Volunteer Marine Rescue members who saved their cattle dog
A retired couple who lost everything when their house boat capsized off Moreton Bay are praising the volunteers who saved them and the life of their submerged dog.
QLD News
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Mike Looney was not going to let the dog drown.
He climbed through a window of the overturned houseboat and plunged feet first, sandshoes and all, into the deep, pitch-black water.
The marine rescue volunteer did not notice the frigid temperature of the Pacific Ocean as he, armed only with a handheld torch, dodged pieces of floating furniture for 3m in the dark as he swam to save the Australian cattle dog.
River’s distressed owners – found in an also sinking tinny clutching to the cage of their pet parrot – had just lost everything and were terrified they were going to lose their beloved dog as well.
Concerned the couple might be suffering from hypothermia, the Volunteer Marine Rescue (VMR) Bribie Island crew had already taken Ian Doughty, 65, and his wife, Jennifer, 64, back to the base on Marine Parade in Bellara, but not before Mrs Doughty begged them to save River.
“I just kept saying to them ‘I can’t leave without my dog. Please get my dog’,” she said.
Moments before dropping into the water, Mr Looney, 56, had spotted the blue heeler as he peered through a window of the 14.6 metre vessel – which was on its side – about 7pm Sunday in the Pumicestone Passage, near Toorbul.
With the help of fellow crew members, Karen Darlington, 45, Lindsay Crompton, 64, and skipper Ian Grimes, 73, Mr Looney used an anchor to smash the window and climbed down to the exhausted dog.
He found her pinned to a wall by a lounge chair and struggling to keep her head above the nearly 3m deep water.
“There was a cabinet floating in front of the lounge that I had to move out of the way, but as soon as you move something out of a water space, something else pops up from underneath,” he said.
“I had to gradually get to her without getting trapped myself.”
Mr Looney said the petrified 12-year-old bluey was very quiet, making it more difficult for the crew to find her in the dark.
“She was really quiet, that was part of the challenge in finding her,” he said.
“She had probably been (paddling) in the water about an hour at that stage. No doubt she would have been trying everything to survive and had become resigned to fate.”
Mr Looney said River, who was wearing a dog jumper, would have drowned within 30 more minutes due to the rising tide.
“Or, with the weight of the water in her jacket, she might have slipped down further or gotten hypothermia,” he said.
“After I was able to get the lounge off and free her, she then tried to sit on my head, she was so grateful.”
Mr Looney swam the dog over to the window above where Mrs Darlington and Mr Grimes dropped a rope down, so he could thread it through the her jacket, before winching the canine up to safety.
Mr Crompton then took River onto the rescue boat to warm her up, while Mr Grimes tied two loops into another rope to throw down to Mr Looney – who by then had been treading water for about 15 minutes – to help him climb out.
Mrs Darlington said the VMR crew had received a call about an upturned vessel about 6.10pm Sunday but had not realised how serious the situation was until they arrived and saw the Rescue 500 helicopter hovering above with a spotlight.
“We were told there was a vessel taking on water with two people on board,” she said.
“So we originally expected to pump some water out and go home.”
Instead, they found the scared and wet Doughty’s in the tinny with their 4-year-old cockatiel, Little Bird.
As the dinghy was tied to the by-then-submerged front of boat, it too, was also sinking.
Mrs Doughty said having to climb off their houseboat as it was tipping over was a terrifying ordeal.
She and Mr Doughty now call the VMR crew their “heroes.”
“It was pitch black and we were sitting in the dinghy in the dark and it was so, so scary,” she said.
“We could hear River crying (inside). She was whimpering … I burst into tears and said ‘please don’t leave without my dog, she’ll think we’ve deserted her’”.
When the crew returned to the VMR base with River, the couple cried again, this time with tears of relief.
“God love them. They came back and apologised because they broke the window to get her,” Mrs Doughty said.
“(But) they were heroes.”
Mr Looney insists the rescue of the couple and the two pets was a team effort.
“It was a real team effort. Yes I went in the boat, but I couldn’t do what I did if we didn’t have the team on the boat and backing me up as well,” he said.
“I was just the one who got wet.”
Because the retired couple lost everything, right down to their car keys, their grandchildren have started a GoFundMe, titled Help Nan and Pa Rebuild their Life in the hope of helping them start over.
The ashes of the Doughty’s 19-month-old grandson were among the treasured possessions lost when their boat went under, a heartbroken Mrs Doughty said.
“We also had my mother’s and Ian’s mothers ashes on board … and those of my son’s two dogs.
“You can’t comprehend the enormity of losing everything until you’ve gone through it yourself and then you think, ‘Oh my God, I’ve only got what I’ve got on, I don’t even have a pair of shoes’,” she said.
Mr Doughty, who now thinks the boat sinking could be related to a pump that was unknowingly moved during some boat renovations, said it would cost about $12,000 to remove the boat from the water.
“But we don’t have $12,000,” he said.
Mrs Doughty said the couple had bought the boat with their superannuation and only had third party insurance.
Originally published as Ian and Jennifer Doughty praise Volunteer Marine Rescue members who saved their cattle dog
Bombshell DV crackdown: Dating app bans, forced to share passwords
Domestic violence offenders could be dealt control orders similar to those used for organised crime and bikies under sweeping changes proposed by the Queensland Police Union.
Secret, big-profit investment hiding in your wardrobe
What can give you up to five times the return on your investment as real estate and as much as 10 per cent more than the ASX, and could be hiding in your wardrobe?