This is the heroic moment when a good Samaritan saves a child from drowning in a septic tank after he fell through an open manhole cover.

The boy – aged around five – had been playing in the street and walked backwards down the hatch in Huaihua, Hunan Province, southwest China.

But as he disappeared down the full-to-the-brim tank of raw human sewage, one heroic passerby leaned down into the manhole and fished the boy out by his coat.

CCTV security video footage of the rescue on 18th December shows spectators standing around panicking until one man steps forward.

And luckily, he got to the boy before he drowned or choked to death on noxious fumes.

The man then walks away, keeping his own hand at arm’s length as it is covered in human poo.

Meanwhile, the boy suddenly discovers that after the rescue he is on his own as he stands in the street caked in human sewage but otherwise unharmed.

Authorities are investigating how the manhole came to be left uncovered, causing a near disaster.