Woman narrowly avoids being swept away while trying to rescue her dog from powerful waves on Brighton beach

A woman risked her life by running into freezing cold waters to save her dog from being washed out to sea.

Dramatic footage shows her struggling to rescue the pet after it was dragged away in the rough sea in Brighton, East Sussex, on Sunday.

The woman was washed off her feet as she struggled towards the dog, which was being pulled further away from the shoreline.

Eventually she was able to grab hold of the animal before a powerful wave crashed over them and they were again separated.

A bystander was then seen picking up the animal – now closer to the shore – before the woman could regain composure and make her way to dry land.

Alessando Intini, 41, watched the rescue and caught it on camera. He said: “It was a wall of water which took the girl off her feet."

Chris Ingall, of Brighton and Hove City Council’s seafront operations manager, said the woman was lucky not to be pulled out to sea.

He told the BBC: “"If she had been any deeper in, that wave would have come behind her, over the top of her, and pushed her down into deep water.

"Fortunately, the force of the water pushed her back up the beach, otherwise that could have been a very different outcome."

It came on the same day the UK faced sub-zero temperatures as a so-called “snow-bomb” hit.