A farmer saved the lives of four cubs after he performed an emergency C-section on a dead fox on the side of a busy road.
Heroic Chris Rolfe carried out the operation after he witnessed a female vixen killed by a car while travelling back from his farm on the A272, near Cowfold, West Sussex around 11.45pm.
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The 24-year-old, from Haywards Heath, said his "instinct" kicked in when he saw the vixen knocked out.
He said: "I saw her on the road and stopped to check and see if she was suffering.
"It was instinctive otherwise instead of one life lost, it would have been the death of all of the cubs as well as the mum."
After carrying out a few checks on the injured animal, he had found that the vixen had died but when he checked its stomach he could see it was moving - which indicated to Chris that she was pregnant.
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He said he ran to his car to get a knife out and performed an emergency C-section on the fox - taking out four little cubs measuring around six inches long.
Although Chris did not have any veterinary training, he has previously performed a C-section during lambing season then put them into his jacket pockets and drove them to his mum's house where they have since be hand-reared.
He added: "I didn't think about it, I just done it."
The cubs are now seven weeks old and the family are working with the Fox Project - a registered charity dedicated to treating the Red Fox - to get them strong enough to go back into the wild.
Chris said: "I am really pleased they are all healthy. It was just something I felt obliged to do, I wouldn't want to see the mum suffer and that is why I got out of the car.
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"And then when I realised she had passed away when I was checking her body, I saw her stomach moving.
"I couldn't think about it too much, I just had to perform the C-section because every minute is crucial.
The cubs, named Ginger, Biscuit, Big tip and Little tip, are under the Fox project programme and will aim to go back into the wild at the age of six months.
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