Five people and a puppy are safe after a dramatic rescue from a sinking boat off the north Queensland coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Emergency crews responded to a beacon activated near Cape Bowling Green, off the coast of Ayr, about 6:30am on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Queensland Government Air (QGAir) rescue helicopter arrived to find three women, two men and a blue heeler puppy called Sooky in the water.<\/p>\n
All were winched from the water into the helicopter and taken to Townsville about 7:30am.<\/p>\n
Paramedics assessed two 45-year-old women, a 28-year-old woman, a 50-year-old man, a 41-year-old man and the puppy.<\/p>\n
All were in good health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The blue heeler puppy was taken from the water around the Cape Bowling Green area. (Supplied: QGAir)<\/p>\n
Townsville Water Police officer in charge Matthew Pegg said the boat had filled with water.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“They were pretty relieved when the helicopter was overhead,” Sergeant Pegg said.<\/p>\n
“It was quite rough and the water was dirty and they were worried about other things that might have been in the water.”Emergency beacon ‘probably saved lives’<\/p>\n
It is understood the group was in the water for nearly an hour.<\/p>\n
They are believed to have left a larger ship anchored nearby to travel towards Magnetic Island in the 7-metre boat that morning.<\/p>\n
Police said the boat was significantly damaged.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sergeant Pegg said Sooky was in “good spirits” and had a nap in the back of the police car on the way home to Townsville.<\/p>\n
He said the incident was a reminder for people to take an emergency beacon with them on the water.<\/p>\n
“It has probably saved their lives,” he said.<\/p>\n
“If you’re boating this summer, make sure your vessel has the correct safety equipment.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five people and a puppy are safe after a dramatic rescue from a sinking boat off the north…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,10173,44,183463,183461,183464,183462],"class_list":["post-326730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boat-rescue","tag-news","tag-north-queensland-rescue","tag-puppy-rescue","tag-qgair","tag-sea-rescue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}