RICHMOND, Va. -- A local couple's vacation gets turned upside down after the massive earthquake rocks Nepal.
Dr. Ajai and Nancy Malhotra were vacationing in Nepal, and hiking down from Mount Everest base camp on that tragic day the earthquake hit the country.
The Malholtra's jumped into action, working as volunteers for a triage center.
Ajai Malhotra worked at a hospital to help treat the injured patients of the basecamp avalanche.
Nancy Malhotra, a nurse, worked at an airport that treated and triaged injured patients.
With limited supplies for those facing life-threatening injuries, their medical background helped see 71 people.
"Working together with the locals and some of the medics that had arrived, we were able to get these patients through and triaged within a four hour period" said Nancy Malhotra, director of Trauma Services at Chippenham and Johnston-Willis Hospitals.
"Unless we had worked together, nothing would have happened. It was nice that it was not just us, or the westerners, it was the local and everybody working together" says Dr. Ajai Malhotra, trauma surgeon at VCU Medical Center.
Most of 71 patients they treated suffered from head and spinal cord injuries. Only one lost his life.
