A POLICEMAN was taken to hospital in a serious condition after falling through ice on a frozen lake while trying to rescue his dog.

The off-duty officer suffered severe hypothermia after being trapped in a former gravel pit at Radley for almost an hour on Monday afternoon.

The drama was witnessed by the policeman’s ten-year-old daughter who had been walking with him around the lake when their chocolate brown labrador, named Poppy, went out on to the ice and fell through.

The father managed to get almost 40 yards out to where the dog had fallen through when he too fell through the thin ice.

His daughter ran to get help and managed to alert a family living a few hundred yards from the lake.

Firefighters and paramedics were called to the scene.

Fire station manager Nick Bourke said: “By the time we got him out he was on his last legs. He went under a couple of times and we had to keep shouting to him to keep him going. We pushed an inflatable hose out to him and managed to persuade him to get it under his arms and then we dragged him back to the edge.

“The dog went into the water twice and then it tried to get in again while we were there. I don’t know if it was on some suicide mission or just very concerned for its master.

“His daughter ran to raise the alarm at the nearest house, which was about 300 to 400 yards away, so there was quite a bit of time before he was rescued.

“He was a big man, larger than your average person, and I think that saved him. It could quite easily have been a bad news story because we reckon he could have been in the water for about 45 minutes.

“Where it all happened was off the beaten track and we had to be shown where it was.”

Members of the public had attempted to rescue the policeman before the emergency services arrived. Andy Haslam, who runs nearby Andy’s Autos, tried to throw a log attached to a rope to the officer.

Mr Haslam said: “We tried sliding it across the ice, but it always stopped four or five feet away from him. I walked on to the ice for about four or five feet but then I heard it cracking.

“We just kept shouting his name to try to keep him focused. Before they pulled him out he went under a couple of times — he really was not in a good way.

“He didn’t have use of his legs and didn’t seem very well when he got out. He was a very lucky man to have got out of there.”

Allison Garfield works at nearby motor industry recruitment firm Steele-Dixon. She said: “I think his daughter being there probably saved him because he was trying to be brave for her.”

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police confirmed last night that the man who fell through the ice was a policeman with the force.

“He has recovered from hypothermia and has now been released from hospital.

“He does not wish to speak to the media about this incident and we will not be issuing anything further about him or the incident,” said the spokesman.