The Wider Image: A boy’s arduous steps on prosthetic legs after Turkey’s earthquake

Prosthetist Paul Gandrapu attends to Mehmet Koc, 13, on a treatment bed as he is seen at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital for a prosthetics fitting, as his father Hasan Koc, 58, and a translator look on, in London, Britain, October 9, 2023. When a devastating earthquake struck Turkey in the early hours of Feb. 6, 2023, the five-storey building in Hatay where Mehmet lived collapsed, burying him in rubble. “I did not feel or think anything when I was rescued, I was confused. I wanted water when they rescued me. My family was waiting for me outside and I saw them right after I was pulled out from the rubble,” Mehmet said, adding he had no sense of how long he had been trapped. Later in hospital, doctors determined that his legs were so badly crushed and injured, that both needed to be amputated just below the hip. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne