On the evening of Tuesday the 12^th of September at around 6:30PM, off-duty Community Constable Dean Walker was alerted by a member of the public that a kangaroo had become trapped at the bottom of a small excavator cut (6 meters deep) near Opal Quest Mine on Lennon Field, approximately 5kms from the Coober Pedy township.

Constable Walker quickly passed this information on to local Mine Rescue/SES Unit Manager, Petta Burnett.

Ms. Burnett proceeded to organise for a crew to attend the incident. Thankfully, the kangaroo had no obvious injuries and wasn’t in distress. Due to nightfall, the rescue was postponed until the next morning.

At around 10am Wednesday morning the Mine Rescue/SES crew reconvened at the site, accompanied by Mr Roger Boland, Animal Control Officer from the Coober Pedy District Council. The Kangaroo was successfully sedated by the Animal Control Officer and then retrieved by the Rescue crew who utilised a Larkins Frame to descend into the open cut and raise him onto safer ground.

The kangaroo was then relocated to the shade of a tree some distance from the site, so that he could recover quietly and wake up in safe territory. A Mine Rescue/SES member remained at the scene to ensure that the kangaroo remained safe until it awoke later in the afternoon.

The rescue operation took around one hour to complete. Thank you to the District Council of Coober Pedy, for helping to make this rescue possible. The SA Ambulance was also on standby at the scene.