A railroad worker rescued a raccoon from an oncoming train after its testicles hair froze to the track.
Neil Mullis, 35, found the traumatized animal and carefully freed him using warm water and a shovel.
Mr Mullis, from Cochrane, Georgia, USA, said: ‘I poured the warm water under his bottom while a co-worker worked the shovel under his butt to try and break him loose.
‘After about five minutes of slowly working him loose, he was free. He jumped off the rail and ran into the woods never looking back.’
The animal was saved after getting frozen to the tracks by its testicle hair
Hair frozen to the railway track after Mr Mullis freed the raccoon with water and a shovel
In the video filmed on 19 December 2022, Mr Mullis can be heard saying ‘poor b***ard’s n**s are frozen to the rail’ as he finds it.
After freeing the animal with hot water and a shovel, Mr Mullis cuts to the aftermath.
He says: ‘Operation well performed! Little fella’s safe.’
Raccoons are naturally shy animals but can be aggressive when threatened and should be handled with caution.
Male raccoons – called boars – often live on their own, and are denning animals, preferring to avoid large open spaces.
This is made more difficult by deforestation, pushing them into urban areas for safety and food.
While they prefer temperate climates, raccoons have dense underfur to protect them from the cold – but this is less helpful when crossing railway tracks.
Neil Mullis, 35, from Georgia, was at work when he came across the animal frozen to the line
Despite the intense rescue efforts from Mr Mullis and his colleagues, nobody could tell how, or why, the raccoon got into this predicament.
He added: ‘I’m guessing because it was -12C outside somehow he was crossing over the rail and sat too long and got stuck!’