Extraordinary footage has emerged of a man being rescued after he was found clinging to a tree high above floodwaters in Far North Queensland.
The region was battered by its worst flood in almost 50 years in the aftermath of ex-tropical Cyclone Jasper, with 600mm of rain within 40 hours up to Monday morning.
Local resident Gavin Dear filmed the incredible moment he spotted the man high up in a tree above the Annan River near Rossville, 200km north of Cairns.
Mr Dear and his son took their tinnie out along the flooded river on Monday after he heard rumours people were stranded on the roof of his local pub, the Lion’s Den Hotel.
Video shows the small boat wading through murky waters before a cry for help is heard coming from a nearby forest.
Local resident Gavin Dear filmed the incredible moment he spotted the man high up in a tree above the Annan River near Rossville, 200km north of Cairns (pictured)
The man was spotted clinging to branches high up in a tree above the flooded Annan River (pictured)
The man and Mr Dear shout back and forth as the local tries desperately to locate him.
‘We got ya, we got ya,’ Mr Dear is heard shouting to the man in a video shared on Facebook.
Mr Dear steers the boat towards the man who is sitting high up in the tree clinging to the branches.
He asks whether the man can get down, to which he replied: ‘Yeah. I’m all cramped up.’
Mr Dear described the man shown in the video – which was the second person he rescued from a tree – as being ‘in a pretty shaken state’.
He explained that a shipping container nearly smashed into the man as it floated past him on Sunday night.
‘The second fella had uncontrollable shakes and he was hallucinating,’ Mr Dear told Today on Tuesday.
‘He said he’d just seen a body wash past him with a crocodile on it, but I think that was one of his hallucinations.’
Mr Dear explained both his properties were underwater so it ‘made sense’ for him to take his tinnie out on the river to see how he could help.
The Rossville local said the ‘real hero’ was a helicopter pilot known as ‘Magoo’ who flew in to help rescue those stranded on the pub roof.
‘The real hero of the story is Magoo the helicopter pilot who was a friend of a friend of the Den,’ Mr Dear said.
‘He made 16 helicopter trips landing on the roof there and he took them all out one by one, we watched him go over us while we were rescuing these two blokes.’
More to come…
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