‘I lost my mind’: Dog owner recounts dramatic rescue from Werribee rapids

Madi knew her adopted pup was in trouble when she saw her briefly dip below the river’s raging surface.

“I kind of kicked into mum-mode,” she says. “I lost my mind.”

Madi and Minka with their rescuers, Acting Sergeant Justin Ivory and Acting Sergeant Nicole Bath.Credit: Jason South

Madi and her pooch Minka regularly walk alongside the normally calm Werribee River, but the rescue dog picked Boxing Day, when the waters were flooded and fast-flowing after Victoria’s Christmas storms, to investigate for the first time.

Suddenly, Madi spotted Minka’s head bobbing past her downstream. The 27-year-old ran down the riverbank, desperately trying to call her dog back to shore. But the current was too strong. When Madi saw Minka “go under a bit” in particularly rapid whitewater, she acted.

She jumped in upstream, using the strong current to drift down and grab Minka. But dog mum and pup were now barrelling downstream together. Madi felt confident she could swim out, but couldn’t drag Minka with her.

That’s when fears really started running through Madi’s mind. She told reporters on Wednesday she thought “I was going to lose her”.

Minka is back to being a good girl after her water rescue in Werribee on Tuesday.Credit: Jason South

Then, a bushy refuge emerged in the swollen waterway in Presidents Park. Madi grabbed onto a tree branch and the pair stopped their perilous drift, but they were now stuck. Fifteen minutes passed before Madi spotted a passer-by on the creek trail and screamed “like a mad woman”.

Minka was scared, Madi says, but all they could do was stay on their makeshift island in the freezing water.

Police were alerted about 1.30pm, but the pair had spent at least two hours in the water by the time Water Police Acting Sergeant Justin Ivory grabbed onto Minka. Two officers in wetsuits were tethered to shore, and, alongside SES crews, local police and the force’s search and rescue team, dragged Madi and Minka across the deep, fast-flowing water to safety.

The pair cuddled on the shore, but Madi did feel “a little mortified” to be caught in the dramatic rescue.

“It could’ve been so much worse,” she says, “and we were helped by some amazing – amazing – people who did a fantastic job at helping us.”

Acting Sergeant Nicole Bath, from Victoria Police’s search and rescue team, said rescuers were worried about the water’s speed, depth and how cold Madi and her dog must’ve been. The rescue took an hour once responders arrived.

“People are generally quite easy to deal with. But animals throw another element of problem-solving into it,” Bath says. “We’re really lucky that the dog took to Justin [Ivory] quite well.”

Bath said it was lucky both got out with barely a scratch, and asked Victorians to continue to be vigilant near floodwaters.

Water Police Acting Sergeant Justin Ivory holds onto the tree where Madi and Minka sought refuge.Credit: Victoria Police

A woman died in Buchan late on Boxing Day after flash flooding swamped campers in a campground. A man also died in Caringal, near Mount Baw Baw in Victoria’s High Country, after a tree branch fell on him amid Victoria’s unseasonably wet and stormy Christmas weather.

Minka went to the vet after her ordeal, but thankfully, she was back tugging on her lead and demanding another walk when her mum spoke to the media at Williamstown police station – even stealing a reporter’s sandwich.

“She’s probably not going to be the ocean dog I hoped,” Madi says. “The dream of getting her on a paddleboard is maybe gone.”

The pair won’t be returning to Presidents Park anytime soon, and Madi said swimming lessons for Minka weren’t planned either.

“I don’t think swimming lessons, maybe just some water awareness courses.”

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