"We jumped in and swam out to him, by the time we got there blood and froth were coming out of his nose and mouth, so the kangaroo was definitely in the middle of a drowning event," he said. "The public had called for help, a number of agencies came to assist with a kangaroo on the beach. The kangaroo had been out in the water and was quite distressed," he said. Members of the public had put a blanket over it and police came down to manage the situation, concerned the kangaroo might jump into traffic or into the children's park. Police cover the kangaroo in a blanket. But after regaining its strength it hopped back into the water, and with the breaking waves and swell, it was in danger.

A police spokeswoman earlier said the kangaroo had been resuscitated using mouth to mouth. This was incorrect. Sergeant Russo had never resuscitated a kangaroo, but had been instructed on how to resuscitate his pet dog when it was hit by a car. He used the same technique, giving the kangaroo compressions on its side. "Kangas can swim but they're not particularly good at it," he said. Police rescue a kangaroo which jumped into the waters at Safety Beach.

"He’d aspirated and was in the middle of drowning, if we hadn’t have acted within the next 30 seconds, it might have been a different story." When the kangaroo could breathe again on its own, the officers wrapped him up and took him in the divisional van back to the police station. Animalia Wildlife rescuer Michelle Thomas said she arrived at the Rosebud police station about 8.30pm to find the kangaroo in lock up. "That was a first for me, having to bail a kangaroo out of the lock-up," Ms Thomas said. "He was so cold from being in the water and so shocked and traumatised that he really didn’t give me too much problem at all.

"We were able to very gently sedate him and we just waited for the sedation to take effect and got him in a transport vehicle to take him." The roo was rehydrated orally and with an IV drip, had the cuts and grazes on the nails of his feet treated and was given antibiotics to ward off pneumonia from swallowing the salt water. "He’s doing really, really well, he’s up, hopping around and feeding," she said. Ms Thomas said animals on the peninsula were really struggling, with the shelter treating at least one kangaroo every day for the past month. "There's a lot of development happening on the peninsula. The koalas are losing their gum trees and the kangaroos are losing their land," she said.

Sergeant Russo said the 'roo rescue was a first for him. "This does not happen that often, we deal with a lot of animal events in the [Mornington] Peninsula. We have a high kangaroo population. This is the first one I've encountered at the beach in the water." Police say the kangaroo is "in good spirits" and lucky to be alive given the amount of salt water it took in.