Ex-footy star saves woman from savage attack after she was ‘pushed and pinned down by man’ while on trail walk

Ex-footy star Arana Taumata has revealed how he saved a young woman in distress in Brisbane’s Mount Coot-Tha.

Taumata, 35, who played for Penrith, Canterbury and North Queensland, sprung into action during a lunchtime run on Friday afternoon when he saw a woman in her 30s lying on the ground.

He raced to the woman’s aid to figure out what had happened.

‘She was on the ground, just dazed. And I was like, ‘S***, are you alright?’ I thought she slipped over,’ Taumata said.

‘She was saying, ‘No, someone pushed me, someone had me on the ground, someone had me on the ground.’

Arana Taumata has revealed how he saved a woman from a savage attack

The woman, aged in her 30s, was confronted by a man dressed in black, who knocked her over and pinned her down.

‘Now I’m in hunting mode. Where is this dog? Where is he?!’ Taumata said in a video he recorded of himself while still on the trail.

Reflecting on the incident, Taumata told 7NEWS that the alleged perpetrator was nowhere to be seen.

‘She said that the guy ran towards me, which I found quite weird, because I would have seen him. He would have ducked into the bush, I thought,’ Taumata said.

‘For me, it was just instinct. You’re going to help someone if they’re on the ground.’

Fellow walkers shared their shock at Friday afternoon’s incident.

‘I think it’d be absolutely horrific; it’d be quite frightening, shocking,’ one told 7NEWS.

Another said: ‘You should be able to walk through these areas and feel comfortable and not threatened.’

Taumata enjoyed a short-lived NRL career with Canterbury, Penrith and the Cowboys

A Queensland Police spokesman said no one had been arrested, with investigations underway. The woman suffered minor injuries.

Authorities are not linking the attack to reports of a man trying to sexually assault another woman at a different Mount Coot-Tha track last month, at this stage.

State Labor MP Jonty Bush issued an urgent message following the incident.

‘We need to become more comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations with people around their attitudes and approaches towards women,’ Bush told 7NEWS.