Australian kayakers rescue stranded kangaroo, pull to safety across shark-infested waters
A pair of kayakers in Australia were captured on video saving an exhausted kangaroo stranded along a canal by pulling him through shark-infested waters to safety.
Anne and Chris Aitken took action when they were notified by their neighbor David Castro that a young kangaroo had become trapped along a canal at the bottom of his garden in Twin Waters, Sunshine Coast, Australia, Kennedy News and Media reported.
The video, obtained by Fox News Digital, shows the pair trying to drag the kangaroo across the canal when the animal swims back to the wall, prompting them to try again.
Anne Aitken, 70, was able to grab onto the kangaroo’s tail and hold on to it while Chris, 72, kayaked to the other side and released the kangaroo into a nearby park.
Anne Aitken says the kangaroo was likely saved from being attacked by the numerous bull sharks that inhabit the canal.
“I felt a real sense of achievement,” she said. “It’s always a great feeling when you save something, and this was a tricky one. There’s bull sharks in the water, so it could have been attacked by them.”
She added that the kangaroo needed to be brought across the canal in order to not be trapped in the garden on the other side, and said she was the “right person, in the right place, at the right time.”
“When we got close, you could tell the kangaroo was very tired,” she said. “He was trying to cover up the fact he was stressed, to avoid being attacked. David’s probably got the highest wall in the whole community, so that didn’t help.”
“Even if you get the kangaroo over the wall, then it’s stuck in his garden. We needed him to be able to swim to a place he could get out. I thought he’d swim alongside us, but he didn’t like that at all. While he turned around to swim off, I grabbed his tail up near the base with both hands, and I hung on as tight as I possibly could.”
Castro, an accountant who recently moved to Australia from Lima, Peru, said he saw movement in the water on his security camera before investigating and discovering that it was a stranded kangaroo.
“I was shocked when I saw it was a kangaroo,” Castro said. “It was exhausted. He was obviously trying to get out for a really long time. There are sharks, so it was dangerous for the kangaroo to be there. I was really relieved when they rescued it.”
The video was posted on Facebook and has been viewed millions of times with many comments praising the trio as heroes.
“That’s a fantastic rescue effort!” one commenter said. “It’s always a problem with hard edge canals. We just don’t know how many of the wildlife get in and can’t get out. Hope it gets back to its mob.”