Heroic rescue: residents scramble their tinny to save horse from floodwater

Jessica and her husband Paul received the call at 6.30am that their neighbour's horse, Portia, was tangled up in fencing and stuck in floodwater, heading towards the river near Millers Forest in the NSW Hunter region.

They quickly got in their tinny and headed towards the horse, who was terrified. When Jessica realised the horse was tangled under the surface, she jumped in the freezing water to free her.

Paul said his wife is a hero, and if she hadn't intervened the horse would have drowned.

"We were still in bed actually when the phone rung, and it was our neighbour just in distress, she had a horse down in the paddock and also heading towards the river, and it was actually swimming," he said.

"By the time we got out, the horse was all wrapped up in the electric fencing cables so it couldn't really go anywhere, it was sort of going under."

They tried to catch the horse, but it was in distress and Jessica said she had to go in.

"She was pretty much up to her head trying to hold onto the horse and trying to put a rope around the top of the horse's head so we could get it out," Paul said.

They brought a knife and Jessica was able to cut the rope off the horses legs under the water.

"We ended up getting it free and then were trying to drag it, sort of swim with it towards a mound where we could find a way back to the house," Paul said.

The boat kept getting caught on fencing along the way and was struggling to move, the prop broke and there were ropes tangled around the boat and motor, but they made it to dry land.

The couple own Hunter River Horse Agistment, and have about 30 horses safe and dry in their house paddock right now.

Paul said the water is higher now than it was in the 2022 flood.

His son is also out in the boat this morning helping a neighbour with stranded cows and horses.

Paul said the major problem Millers Forest residents are facing right now is a lack of livestock feed, and they are waiting on a call back from Local Land Services.

"It's still rising pretty fast, it's definitely still coming up and it has actually gone over now the height of the '22 flood," he said.

"It's the clean up afterwards, the amount of logs, the amount of debris, we've got fridges floating down the river that's all floated into the property, and just the mess, the clean up's going to be incredible."