A WOMAN who became stuck in deep mud while walking her dog at Minehead harbour was pulled to safety after a dramatic rescue on Friday.

The woman, said to be local, had walked across the harbour-mouth at low tide. Harbourmaster Craig Butler and resident Marcus James spotted that she was in difficulties near the steps at the end of the pier and raced to help.

Using planks on the mud, they pulled the women to safety unharmed.

Mr Butler said: “She quickly sank very deeply and became distressed. Luckily, the tide was well out, but she was still in danger of being in very serious trouble from stress and compression. 

“That far corner of the harbour is like quicksand. Luckily, this happened in the middle of the afternoon and there were people around to alert us."

A Watchet Coastguard spokesman said: “We were tasked following a 999 call and two of our team, who were in Minehead, were on the scene three minutes after being paged.

“The rest of the team were stood down as they were leaving the station.”