Brave 4-year-old risks wolves and the subzero Siberia weather to get help for her grandmother

4-year-old Saglana Salchak has been called the bravest girl in Siberia after she walked five miles through a wolf-packed forest, across a frozen river to get help for her 60-year-old grandmother who was unconscious.

Saglana, who lives with her grandmother and blind grandfather in Tuva republic, Russia, set out with just a box of matches as temperatures dropped below 29 degrees. She walked for over three hours in the cold before she was seen by neighbours who took her to the hospital for check-up. Sadly, the grandmother she was trying to save had died of heart attack which was why she was motionless.

“I just walked, walked and got there,” the little girl later told a local newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, and revealed that her biggest concerns were not fear, but rather she was desperately cold and hungry.

Saglana's journey has led to an investigation by the Tuva Investigative Committee as to why there was no adequate phone or emergency communications in the district. The committee opened a criminal case against the young girl’s mother, Eleonora Salchak, for leaving a minor in danger. If charged, she could face a year in prison.

“She knew that the elderly lacked the ability to take measures to guarantee the child’s safety,” the committee said in a statement. 

Saglana now lives in a local social center.