In a thrilling game it was Vics who took the lead on only eight minutes when Mark Quayle opened the scoring. The former Morecambe striker got on the end of Danny Mayman's floated free-kick after Ashley Vickers had handled the ball.
His header at the near post was too powerful for Tony Roberts who had no chance of making the save. There were early warning signs when Mark Devlin was allowed a free header which he planted into Roberts' hands.
After a slow start the Daggers produced an attack and it was the impressive Chris Moore who was the main orchestrator.
His good run into the box, followed by a teasing cross was just turned away by keeper Peter Band. An equaliser seemed inevitable and Mark Janney made up for an earlier miss when he crossed for Moore, whose knock down was perfect for Paul Bruce to slide home for only his sixth ever goal for Dagenham.
Despite enjoying much of the procession the Daggers again found themselves a goal behind. Mayman again crossed for Quayle to nod in his second while the Daggers defence stood still.
There was more than a degree of fortune about Northwich's third. After setting up two goals already, Mayman added his name to the scoresheet on 64 minutes.
His 35-yard free-kick somehow avoided everyone in the penalty box to curl directly into the top corner of the net.
Dagenham were handed a way back into the game when Moore was up-ended in the penalty area by Neil Brisco. Moore took responsibility to take the spot-kick sending it straight down the middle to make it 2-3.
In the dying moments Dagenham threw everything forward with Steve Clark and Bruce going close, but they were unable to break through the Vics defence, who have Steve Garvey to thank for a goal-line clearance and then Ben Connett who made an excellent last-minute save.