Firefighters have rescued an unfortunate fat rat which got stuck in a manhole cover when trying to sneak out of the sewage system.

The rat was discovered by a family in Bensheim, a town in the central German state of Hesse.

Local inhabitant Knut was on his way back home to his wife Juliana and his two daughters when he suddenly spotted the rat in a manhole cover on the middle of the road.

Juliana said: “When my husband came home, he thought that the rat was just sitting there at first.”

Only after taking a closer look did he realise that the chubby rat was in fact stuck inside the cover.

Images show the rat stuck in a drainage hole in a manhole cover, appearing to cry to for help.

Juliana said: “At first we tried to free the animal ourselves. We took leather working gloves and tried to carefully twist it out of the hole. It was terrified, screamed terribly, and bit into the glove.”

Even though Juliana thought it would be easier to pull out the rat once it had bitten its teeth firmly into the glove, they still did not manage to release it.

The family called in the help of Michael Sehr of the Professional Animal Rescue Rhein-Neckar.

Sehr immediately informed a friend from the local fire brigade, who also came to the scene with seven firefighters.

Mr Sehr said: “When the manhole cover was completely raised, I was able to free the rat with a twisting motion. It immediately dashed back to the sewers.”

Photos show the firefighters working to release the animal.

It reportedly took Sehr and the firefighters just three minutes to rescue the rat.

Sehr said that the rat, which normally can weigh up to 650 grams (22 ozs), was one of the heavier ones he had ever encountered. He said that the chubby rat had lots of “winter fat” on its body.

And even though the rescue mission would normally be billed at 120 EUR (103 GBP) nobody had to pay for it.

Mr Sehr said: “It was an unbureaucratic act on a Sunday. Since we have no contract with the municipality, we have simply acted under the Animal Welfare Act and saved the animal. The guys from the fire department are good buddies, they simply handled it with me.”

As a reward, the two daughters aged two and seven of Juliana and Knut made some drawings of the rat and gifted them to Michael Sehr and the firefighters.