The three fishermen – like the dolphin – had a guardian angel. No one suffered any serious injuries when the 3.4-meter-long bottlenose dolphin crash-landed with a bang in the small boat's cockpit.
One second everything was calm and then, just like when lightning strikes, there's a big dolphin in the boat, thrashing around and destroying everything, says boat owner Dean Harrison.
Getting the dolphin back into the water was easier said than done.
We saw that the dolphin was alive and breathing and thought – we have to start taking care of him and figure out how we solve this, says Harrison.
The fishermen called for help and were instructed to head to a boat ramp an hour away. Once there, rescue arrived in the form of a tractor and a crane.
The dolphin could swim away and we could walk home, and we all got a great story. It was a good ending to a situation that could have ended very differently.
