Five-year-old Aras is lying on his back, playing with a model vehicle, dwarfed by his adult hospital bed.
He is a miracle in Turkey.
105 hours after the earthquake, rescue workers managed to pull him from the wreckage of his house in the now-devastated city of Kahramanmaras.
His body temperature was 28 degrees Celsius when he was brought into the intensive care unit, indicating that hypothermia had already taken hold (82 degrees Fahrenheit).
Aras might have lived, but his sister Hiranur, who was seven, did not. Alp, his nine-year-old brother, did not either. neither his dad.
One of the numerous families who have been permanently destroyed by this catastrophe.
Mehmet is sitting beside Aras’s bedside, caressing his grandson’s brown hair.
“He is a good boy. He has a commanding manner. He has integrity. He isn’t a spoiled child.”
Mehmet, who is now 72, promises that he would continue to care for Aras as if he were his own son for the rest of his days.
