A small girl was rescued unharmed from a pond north of Fort Dodge Tuesday afternoon.

Webster County Chief Deputy Derek Christie said the little girl’s father pulled her from the pond about 15 minutes after she was reported missing.

“She was fine,” Christie said.

“It was obviously a very scary and intense situation,” he added.

The girl, whose age was not released, was reported missing from a home on Becker Drive northwest of Fort Dodge at about 1:30 p.m.

“It appears that she just had opened up one of the doors and left out the door of the house,” Christie said.

He said her parents noticed her absence within minutes and called for help.

Webster County sheriff’s deputies and Iowa State Patrol troopers converged on the area to search for the girl.

“While they were searching, they heard her yell out in the middle of the pond,” Christie said. “Her dad jumped into the pond at that point and was able to get her out.”

He described the water as a “marshy kind of pond area.”

“She was in the pond, kind of treading water,” he said.

He said the girl’s father was in water up to his waist when he rescued her.

An ambulance from the Fort Dodge Fire Department was called so that paramedics could check the girl.