When stumbled upon a baby elephant in desperate need of help, this hero placed it on his shoulders– without a second thought– and carried it to safety. The moment was captured on camera, and the viral photos have lately re-emerged online!

Palanichamy Sarathkumar, a 28-year-old ranger from Tamil Nadu, India, was heading back home after a night-shift when he got a phone call concerning a distressed elephant blocking a roadway. He and a few of his colleagues rushed to the scene and they managed to head the elephant back into the woods. But only after a few minutes Sarathkumar realized the reason the elephant was in distressed.

It is when he came across a baby elephant trapped into a ditch. The tiny animal was simply too weak to walk, so the dedicated ranger did something impossible. He just raised the animal onto his shoulders, although it was weighing more than he did.

” We found it [baby elephant] stuck inside a small ditch,” Sarathkumar told BBC NEWS. “It was tired and confused, so I believed to carry it. It was very heavy, but I just raised it on the spur of the moment.”

Despite he weighs around 186ls, Sarathkumar somehow managed to raise the 220lbs baby elephant on his back, and carry it to safety. The crying calf was ultimately rejoined with its mom.

” Initially 4 of us carried,” the ranger said. “Our plan was to take it to the opposite of the roadway to rejoin it with its mother. But there was a risk of being attacked as she was still close-by. So I chose to carry the calf by myself throughout the roadway.”

Video of the ranger carrying the powerless creature via the woods wend viral online, and he was hailed as a hero by the local community!

” A great deal of people called to congratulate me,” the man claimed. “Everyone in my village is now asking me the same question. How did you raise an elephant?!”.