A kangaroo has a surfer to thank for a rescue from some rough seas. A video from Australia’s South Coast captured the incident on Monday.
According to an Instagram post, Brendan Riddick was walking on the beach when he spotted a kangaroo struggling in the water. Riddick quickly jumped into the water with his surfboard and headed towards the animal.
Another person on the beach, Natalie Cannon, filmed the entire incident.
In the clip, you see Riddick paddle out to the animal and try to help guide it back to the beach. However, crashing waves and a strong current kept pulling the kangaroo back out into deeper water. Riddick is trying to do this all while the waves also throw his board around. Finally, the pair get close enough to the beach that Riddick is able to drag the animal in, where plenty of onlookers have gathered.
“It looked like it was swimming okay in the calm rock pool area, but then it started drifting out into the current and was getting taken out to the point,” Riddick was quoted in the post from About Regional, a local media company in Australia’s New South Wales. “I thought, geez, if I don’t go in there, that poor thing is going to drown.”
While it may not seem like it in this video, kangaroos are actually good swimmers. The animal uses its tail in the water to paddle away from predators that are chasing it.