Teenage girl local hero

As Virginia Bullick took her dog for a walk, she stepped out onto the wharf, beside the fishing boats that bobbed and swayed in the rough harbour.

Suddenly, a local fisherman yelled out that a dog was trapped in the water, low below her feet and struggling to get free.

She recognized him as Bear a neighbouring dog from down her street.

Quickly Bullick stripped of her shoes and tossed her cell phone aside before clambering down the ladder.

She saw that the black lab-mix had been caught trying to scramble out of the water and was wedged between the post and the ladder jutting up through the surface of the harbour.

She yelled for the help of her uncle, whose boat was docked close to the wharf, before making her split second decision.

She jumped in, the hypothermic water temperatures weighing her clothes down and reaching just below her chin.

“I had no choice,” said Bullick, “I had to save the dog.”

She swam over to Bear with the surprised cries of the fisherman still at the wharf as he saw her swimming in the frigid water towards the dog.

“I had to pick him up and wiggle him out from where he was and put him on the boat until I could get up out of the water,” said Bullick.

“He looked like he was scared and shivering,” she remembers, “and so I took off my wet coat and covered him so the wind wouldn’t blow onto him.”

Her uncle lifted Bear from the boat to the wharf and to safety, where both dog and girl were able to dry off and get warm.

“I feel quite proud,” she says of her heroics that day, a shy smile playing across her face.