A 4-YEAR-OLD girl Saglana Salchak, in Russia’s Tuva republic last month treked 8 kilometers over snowfield packed with wolves in subzero temperature in Siberiafetched to fetch help for her grandmother.

    Her journey began when she was asked by her grandfather to get help when she found her 60-year-old grandmother motionless. Her grandfather, who is blind, did not realize it was 5 a.m. and pitch dark, reported Siberian Times.

    The only thing the girl had was matches, which she took in case she needed to light a fire, and she followed the tracks of a horse sled, partly on a frozen river, which she knew led to the neighbor’s home 8 kilometers away.

    “It was very cold and I was so hungry,” she later said. “But I wasn’t scared. I just kept walking. And I finally got there.”

    The medical personnel later discovered that the grandmother had died of a heart attack.

    The girl’s story soon went viral and won the hearts of many. “This 4-year-old is amazing. My kids won’t even walk to the neighbor’s house,” said a parent on freerangekids.com.

    The Tuvans are a Turkic ethnic group living in southern Siberia. They are historically known as one of the Uriankhai, from the Mongolian designation. As historically cattle-herding nomads, the Tuvan children are better prepared for emergencies than their counterparts living in the cities. They ride horses at a very young age, and can walk farther than normal people. Despite this, local people still worried about her in hindsight. “Tuva has simply filled up with wolves,” said Semyon Rubtsov, head of the regional search and rescue group to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

    Saglana’s mother, Eleonora Salchak, and stepfather live in another part of the region, and the Tuva investigative committee has filed a criminal case against the mother for leaving a minor in danger, reported the Guardian.

    “She knew that the elderly lacked the ability to take measures to guarantee the child’s safety,” it said in a press release. If charged, the mother could face up to a year in prison. The committee said it was also investigating the actions of social policy officials in the girl’s district.

    Sayana Mongush, an activist in the regional capital of Kyzyl, told the Guardian that it was shocking Salchak’s grandparents didn’t have phone or Internet connection, especially since defense minister and Tuva native Sergei Shoigu previously promoted archeological digs at an ancient fortress located in their district.