Latest: Police honour two high-rise heroes who saved young boy
A hero watchman helped save a young boy dangling from a window of a high-rise in Sharjah on Tuesday.
Mohammed Rahmatullah, a father-of-two from Nepal, was busy with a team of maintenance workers at about 8am when they spotted five-year-old Farouq Mohammad clinging to a window ledge on the 13th floor.
He immediately alerted the emergency services and asked nearby workers to stand at the bottom of the building with a blanket to catch the boy if he fell.
I asked one of the workers to call the police and at the same time asked three other workers to hold a blanket below just in case.
Mohammed Rahmatullah,
watchman
“We were doing maintenance work on the lifts in the building since early morning,” Mr Rahmatullah told The National.
He said that after seeing the boy, “there was no time”.
“I asked one of the workers to call the police and at the same time asked three other workers to hold a blanket below just in case.”
Mr Rahmatullah then raced to the apartment with two maintenance workers to try to get inside.
On his way up to the apartment, he called the boy’s father, who was not in the building.
With the father's permission, “an Egyptian tenant, a maintenance worker and myself broke open the door of the flat”, he said.
“I imagined one of my two sons in that scenario and I nearly broke into tears. I knew we had to act quickly because a minute can make a difference between life and death.”
While one of the three men grabbed the boy’s arm, the other two pulled him up to safety.
Speaking to The National from the family's apartment on Wednesday, Farouq’s mother, Lama, 27, from Syria, said she briefly left Farouq alone in the apartment on Tuesday morning to go and buy food for breakfast from the market on the ground floor of the building.
She said he was asleep in the bedroom when she left.
“I have never done this before and I will never do it again,” she said.
“God saved my son for me. This was a miracle that I thank god for.”
The mother-of-three said she had been out for a few minutes when her husband called to tell her Farouq was hanging from the window.
“He received a call from the watchman then called me,” she said.
She returned at 8.10am to find “a huge crowd under the building”.
“The few minutes that it took to hear that my son was safe felt like decades.”
She said all the windows in the property were secured, but the one Farouq climbed out of was open about 10cm.
“It has been a very strong lesson for me and for all parents because it is still beyond my comprehension how my son managed to slip through that tiny space,” she said.
“We have to watch our children all the time.”
Sharjah Civil Defence said by the time their crews arrived to the building the boy was safe and back inside his family’s property.
Sharjah police are investigating.
The bio
Who inspires you?
I am in awe of the remarkable women in the Arab region, both big and small, pushing boundaries and becoming role models for generations. Emily Nasrallah was a writer, journalist, teacher and women’s rights activist
How do you relax?
Yoga relaxes me and helps me relieve tension, especially now when we’re practically chained to laptops and desks. I enjoy learning more about music and the history of famous music bands and genres.
What is favourite book?
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - I think I've read it more than 7 times
What is your favourite Arabic film?
Hala2 Lawen (Translation: Where Do We Go Now?) by Nadine Labaki
What is favourite English film?
Mamma Mia
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