A monitor lizard fell into a 100-feet deep well at Uskuri village near Ahmednagar in western India.

The residents of the village called Animal Rescue Society for help and rescuer Akash Jadhav rushed with his team to save the reptile.

They knew that the rescue would be tough. The well was deep and the lizard bite could chew off chunks of flesh from the hand which tried to grab it.

Team member Nawaz Shaikh climbed down the well with the help of a harness and faced an added difficulty: the lizard turned out to be an adept swimmer and was determined to dodge him.

To keep distance from him, it would swim to the other end of the well, with Nawaz following it in hot pursuit.

He also noticed that the lizard would cleverly sink to the bottom of the well and disappear in water and come up suddenly to catch breath. Nawaz decided to hover over it to grab its tail as it surfaced. After a few attempts he managed to catch the lizard and was pulled up by his team.

The lizard was later released in the wild.

Akash said: “The lizard had been in the well for a few days and had become weak due to lack of food. It was still agile enough to dodge us for two hours. Thanks to our incredibly brave rescuer Nawaz the lizard is back to where it belongs.”