Woman saves dog with mouth-to-mouth

A woman jumped into flood waters in northeast Australia to rescue a drowning dog then gave it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to bring it back to life.

Petra Lovey told how she jumped into the Barron River, near Cairns, Queensland, after seeing Jerzy the border collie-cross dive into the swollen waters and get swept under a bridge.

"The last thing I saw were her eyes looking at me as she was swept under the old wooden bridge," Lovey said.

"The Barron River flows like a torrent so it didn't take much for her to be sucked under the bridge."

Clare Hensley, who was walking Jerzy, feared the worst but Lovey was determined to save the dog.

"Jerzy was fighting it - she was completely submerged and she would have been submerged for about two minutes," Lovey said.

"I knew she would come through the other side but it was a matter of trying to spot her as she came through.

"I saw a little speck of black in the water so I jumped in, everyone was screaming out to me that she was gone, but I wasn't going to give up. Somehow I found her body and grabbed her."

Jerzy was lifeless when Lovey and Hensley got her out of the water.

"Clare started to perform CPR but was unsure how to do it properly on a dog so I took over," Lovey said.

"Jerzy was flat - she was gone. But after a few compressions somehow there were signs of life."

Lovey said she had experience in caring for animals but had never had to react so urgently.

"I wasn't going to give up - I didn't even think twice about giving her mouth to mouth," she said.

"I treated her like a child and you wouldn't give up on a child so I wasn't going to give up on Jerzy."

The sore and sorry dog spent three nights at an animal hospital after the incident.