His name was Dashrath Manjhi, and it took him 22 years. People laughed at him at first. Years into his project they brought him food and tools. When he was finished, they praised him.

Manjhi was first driven to create a faster path through the mountains to the nearest hospital when his wife was injured, and--because they couldn't get her to a hospital fast enough--she passed away. Manjhi didn't want anyone else in his village to go through what he and his wife went through.

They told him a single man could not carve down a mountain. This only steeled his resolve.

From 1960-1982, from ages 35-55, Manjhi picked at the mountain, eventually creating a 360-foot-long, 25-foot-deep, 30-foot-wide road. This new path cut the trip from his village to the hospital from 70km to just 15km.

The path through the mountain (indicated by the green arrow) is longer than a football field and makes it easy to transport the sick.

People stopped calling him crazy and started praising him as the "Mountain Man." The local government has proposed a paved road to be named "Dashrath Manjhi Road" and a hospital in his honor.

The health of his village has Dashrath Manjhi to thank.