Quick-thinking woman carries out an emergency Caesarean on a pregnant hare

Quick-thinking Leila Goss carried out an emergency Caesarean on a pregnant hare she found dead in a road — and is raising its surviving baby as a pet.

Leila raced home with the still-warm body of the mum, which had been run over.

She cut her open with a knife and saw one of her two unconscious babies was still alive. Animal-lover Leila, 25, held the 4oz creature upright to drain fluid from its lungs — then gently blew up its nose.



Leila, a lab assistant at a donkey sanctuary, said: “It started gasping for air. Its breathing became steadier and the legs started to move. Within an hour it was sitting upright.”

Leila has nurtured the baby, now five weeks’ old, on milk. It lives in a box in her bedroom in Honiton, Devon. She fears it would be killed by a fox if released.

Vet Simon Draper said it was “very unusual” for a creature to survive in a dead mother’s womb for more than a few minutes.

There are more photos here.