Sussex women free trapped dolphin in dramatic sea rescue

Amy Walker, Carrie Warrior and Sarah Gale spotted the dolphin in the sea while out on a walk.

Two of the women plunged into the icy waters to manoeuvre the dolphin in the dramatic rescue, which had become trapped in a rock gulley.

They struggled against the incoming tide before releasing the dolphin.

The trio, from Hastings Rounders, were out on the sports team’s Christmas walk on Hastings seafront when they saw massed gulls hovering in the sky.

Amy, who chairs Hastings Rounders, said: “We stopped to watch as the birds looked quite unusual, and then we saw a fin.”

She ran down the rocks at Rock-a-Nore, with Carrie, an artist and Sarah Gale, a retail sales assistant at Asda.

Carrie said: “We all thought it was a shark to begin with. By the way it was turning, we knew it was stuck in a rock gulley.”

Sarah said: “When we got closer we could see it wasn’t a shark but a dolphin or maybe a porpoise. Amy had read something about not approaching beached animals and she was trying to google to check it but we couldn’t get a signal so then she just said: ‘Hold my coat!’ Before I knew it Amy and Carrie were in the water.”

The two women struggled to reposition the bottle-nosed dolphin and were in the 10 degree water for more than five minutes.

Amy said: “It was pretty tough going because the sea was rough and we couldn’t get a sure footing on the seabed because of the rocks. The tide was coming in so we were getting knocked over and having to pick each other up, as well as trying not to stress the dolphin even more. I was telling her she would be ok. We were at the tail end because we weren’t sure if she would bite us. She was quite heavy.”

Carrie said: “Because the water was choppy, we couldn’t see the rocks under the water, so it took about five minutes of both of us manoeuvring the dolphin before I was able to turn it and finally release it. It was definitely a two-woman job, but then we are always a team at Hastings Rounders.”