Wednesday 22 January 2014

This mother had to trek for nine days just to get to hospital



The family were sometimes forced to wade through icy water and snow after the cold weather blocked the roads from Ladakh to the hospital in Lingshed




Latest addition: The newborn baby is wrapped up warm for the nine-day journey back to their home town in Ladakh, Northern India


Travelling from Leh, the capital of Ladakh to Lingshed, where the hospital is takes around five days in the summer, but during the winder, snow closes the roads and mountain passes and the frozen river is the only way out




The new mothers trekking back home with her newborns on their backs


The birth of a child is one of the most significant moments in a family's life. 
Many are fortunate enough to experience this in the comfort of a hospital, before driving home with nothing but a table-load of presents and sleepless nights to worry about.
For this family from Ladakh, Northern India, the situation was quite different, as they were forced to travel on foot for 45 miles to get to the nearest hospital.
It took them nine days to get to their destination, Lingshed, the nearest town with a hospital, after which they had to return the same way they came - up a frozen mountain river in temperatures of -35C.
A photographer encountered the family during their nine-day journey home with their newborn baby in a basket, carrying a young child.
The frozen river Chadar is at an altitude of 11,123 ft,and the family walked for eight hours-a-day over the frozen river often up to their knees in bitingly cold water.
The family were forced to carry both provisions and children, and camped in mountain caves at night as they trekked back to their home town.
The photos were captured by photographer Tim Vollmer from Iceland who was trekking up the Chadar with his friends when he spotted the weather-beaten family.
SOURCE-DAILYM
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