A kindly grandmother massaged and stroked a giant carp in her bath after finding it dying in the road.
Deborah Rollings had taken the fish home to her tub in a bid to rescue it after she found it belly-up in the street.
The 60-year-old from Leighton Buzzard sprang into action when husband Keith, 58, called her at 5am to tell her about the ailing creature.
Keith was on his way to work on Thursday when he rang to say: "There's a fish in the street."
Acting quickly to ensure the fish wasn't run over, Deborah headed outside to fetch it, BedfordshireLive reports.
Deborah said: "I went out in my dressing gown and I could see his shiny white belly.
"I thought he was a goner, he was in a right old state.
"It's been dropped from a great height on the road so it's been bashed up."
Deborah said that she though maybe a heron or another large bird had dropped the fish from the sky. She dubbed the fish 'Freedom'.
"I ran the bath and put it in - and it's on its side and flipping over so I've spent an hour and a half stroking it and getting its balance and massaging it under its belly," Deborah added.
"I could feel a little heart beat so I knew it was alive but it was playing dead - must have been shock - poor thing."
Deborah persevered in the care of Freedom, stopping at nothing to ensure he was OK.
She said: "I had quite a lot of contact with him and was talking to him - it's like he knew what I was saying.
"I was going 'how you doing?' and he kept struggling."
For 45 minutes, Deborah carefully coaxed Freedom to swim on its own, but it struggled due to its injuries.
She posted in a Leighton Buzzard residents Facebook group to see if anyone was missing a fish or could give it a better home than her bath.
Knowing the the chlorine in tap water is harmful to fish, Deborah wanted to get Freedom somewhere safer - and the community rallied.
Someone who lives nearby suggested she take the fish to their pond, but Freedom was just too big.
Deborah was told that Freedom was likely a wild fish, and that perhaps it had ended up on land when flooding caused the river banks to burst.
She took him to Tiddenfoot Lake in Leighton Buzzard and "released him back into a lovely clear water".
"I've been a fish saviour today," said Deborah. "Freedom is free."
