This is the heartwarming moment railway workers dig out a mountain goat completely buried under thick snow by the train tracks.
The animal was rescued next to a railway track between Admont and Hieflau in the Gesause National Park in the south-eastern Austrian state of Styria.
Video Credit: CEN/OeBB
A snowplow train of the Austrian Railways (OeBB) was travelling along the line, which was temporarily closed due to the severe weather conditions hitting the Alps, when workers saw the goat on the tracks.
The locomotive was driving at a speed of 19mph to clear the track, slow enough for them to spot the trapped animal, and they then decided to move the chamois, a species of goat-antelope native to the Alps, out of the way.
Despite the driver sounding the horn, the chamois had not been able to jump from the track fast enough to avoid being covered in the snow pushed off the rails by the locomotive.
Austrian Railways employees Johannes Seebacher and Josef Pechhacker stopped the train, took a shovel and jumped into the snow to help.
While their five colleagues Patrick Gotzenbrugger, Gunter Buchner, Martin Hosele, Johannes Gottsbacher and driver Thomas Weissensteiner watched and filmed the rescue mission, Seebacher and Pechhacker started to dig out the unfortunate chamois.
After shovelling the goat clear, the two men watched it wade through the thick snow to safety before congratulating each other on a job well done.
Wildlife expert Christian Mayer believes that the chamois must have been transfixed by the oncoming train.
Mayer said: “It can be assumed that the chamois was standing on the tracks and when the train advanced it just jumped to the side.”
Mayer said he is happy that the railway employees did not hesitate to jump into action.
He said: “I guarantee that the animal would not have survived otherwise.”
Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
