Dramatic footage has been released of the daring rescue of a stranded teenage girl trapped in a tree in a flood-swollen river at the foot of Sydney's Blue Mountains. The 15-year old had been out for a kayak adventure with her father when she fell out the canoe into the cold dark waters of the Nepean River on Saturday afternoon.
She was swept away by the current but managed to grab onto a tree in the middle of the river - swollen by last week's torrential rain - where she was became stuck with no escape.
Her frantic father desperately tried to rescue her with his kayak but called in emergency services when the fast-flowing water and hazards in the water meant he was unable to get close enough to reach her.
NSW Police scrambled their rescue helicopter crew around 5pm and on Wednesday released the amazing video of the incident.
It shows the police chopper team racing to the scene near Emu Plains in a desperate bid to reach the girl before sunset and darkness hamper the search for her.
Incredibly they manage to spot her through the thick foliage and branches, clinging to the branches of a fallen tree, and begin the rescue mission as dusk fell.
An officer in frogman gear is winched down several hundred feet, dizzily spinning in the wind as he drops, before splashing into the water and swimming against the current to the shivering, terrified girl.
He managed to strap the girl into the rescue harness before the pair are winched back up high into the air to the safety of the helicopter.
She can be seen clinging to the police officer in fear as he gently manoeuvres her through the helicopter hatch and inside to the sanctuary of the aircraft.
The chopper then immediately flies to a nearby landing zone where the girl's distraught father was waiting for the pair to be reunited before she was assessed by paramedics at the scene. A NSW Police spokesman added: ' The girl was flown to a waiting NSW Ambulance a short distance away and assessed by paramedics. She was uninjured.'
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