An Australian man has saved a kangaroo from drowning in shark-infested waters by using his surfboard to rescue the exhausted animal.
In a story that could only come from Queensland, Neil McCallum was on an early morning walk with his son on a Gold Coast tourist beach when a young kangaroo hopped past the pair, bounded into the surf and started swimming out to sea.
Mindful that two hammerhead sharks had been spotted in the area in the past few days, Mr McCallum, 48, decided to keep an eye on the adventurous marsupial.
However, it wasn't long before the animal started to struggle in the waves. Mr McCallum realised the kangaroo had become stuck in a dangerous rip current and was pulled being about 200 yards offshore.
"A guy came up and said: 'Gee your dog's a long way out'," he told Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper. "I said: 'That's not a dog, that's a kangaroo'."
Mr McCallum quickly ran home to fetch his surfboard and wake his wife so that she could film the unfolding drama.
Back at the beach, he paddled out to the stricken kangaroo and attempted to help it on to his surfboard.
"It was very frightened by the time I got to it. I grabbed it on the back and it sort of shook me off like a wild animal. So I tried to wrestle him on to my surfboard and he found it difficult to stay on board."
Eventually he managed to herd the kangaroo into a sand bar where it recovered before hopping away.
Mr McCallum said it was the first time he had seen a kangaroo on Kirra Beach, a built-up beach 12 miles from Surfer's Paradise.
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