Dog rescued on NSW south coast after being swept off rocks and swimming 800 metres to island

On Monday, radio operators in Batemans Bay along the New South Wales south coast got a call they hadn’t had before: a dog had been swept off the rocks and was in the ocean in distress. Rod Ingamells, the unit commander of the local Marine Rescue NSW team, was one of the first to hop in a rescue vessel. But by the time his team reached the area, the dog had swum nearly 800 metres across the bay to nearby Snapper Island. “I thought originally it was going to be easy, but it’s a difficult little spot,” he said. “One of our crew members who was a bit of a dog lover, she went straight into the water. But he decided to play hide and seek … and he ran around to the other side.” Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email The Batemans Bay team has been training since September wth two new rescue water crafts that were delivered last year. The jetskis came in handy amid extremely rough conditions that made it difficult for a larger boat to approach the rocky island. After about an hour, a volunteer was able to coax the dog on to the back of a jetski near an area called Smugglers Cove, a rocky outcrop. “We put him on to the ski and he was a bit like the drover’s dog,” Ingamells said. “We’ve been training for months, and he’s got the accolade for being the first rescue. It turns out to be a puppy instead of a person.” He added the dog hasn’t been properly identified so far, but a good Samaritan had called in saying they believed the pup’s name was Oscar. …