SHARJAH // A mother had to be dissuaded by shocked neighbours from throwing her two young children from the seventh floor window of her blazing apartment yesterday afternoon in a desperate bid to save their lives.
As residents assembled beneath the burning flat in the Abu Shagara area, just behind Mega Mall, the woman appeared at the window crying out to them to catch her children before they hit the ground.
"She held one child about three years old and was about to throw him," said Zubairi, an Indian national who rushed to the building to help. "She was thinking that the people gathered below should catch him before he hit the ground - but this was all too dangerous.
"Everyone kept asking her to wait a small time.
"It was an excellent example of a mother's heart, pleading to save her children and not herself even in such a desperate crisis."
As the situation became more life threatening, firefighters arrived and helped the Arabic mother and her two children escape the blaze. They were taken to Kuwait hospital uninjured but suffering for smoke inhalation.
Zeinabdin Ismail, who lives next door to the family, thanked firefighters for arriving at the scene so quickly.
"The building fire alarms were good and helped everyone to leave on time," he said. "But the biggest thanks go to the civil defence officials that rescued our neighbours who were trapped in the fire.
"The consequences would have been devastating to all of us, especially my family as our children play together."
The cause of the fire was still under investigation.
Meanwhile, in Ajman, a bus carrying labourers to work caught fire in the Jurf area yesterday morning.
The men were able to escape from the bus and no one was hurt, said First Lt Salem Al Zaabi, the director of media and public relations at Ajman Civil Defence.
ykakande@thenational.ae
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2019 ASIA CUP POTS
Pot 1
UAE, Iran, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia
Pot 2
China, Syria, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Qatar, Thailand
Pot 3
Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Palestine, Oman, India, Vietnam
Pot 4
North Korea, Philippines, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Turkmenistan
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Who are the Sacklers?
The Sackler family is a transatlantic dynasty that owns Purdue Pharma, which manufactures and markets OxyContin, one of the drugs at the centre of America's opioids crisis. The family is well known for their generous philanthropy towards the world's top cultural institutions, including Guggenheim Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate in Britain, Yale University and the Serpentine Gallery, to name a few. Two branches of the family control Purdue Pharma.
Isaac Sackler and Sophie Greenberg were Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York before the First World War. They had three sons. The first, Arthur, died before OxyContin was invented. The second, Mortimer, who died aged 93 in 2010, was a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma. The third, Raymond, died aged 97 in 2017 and was also a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma.
It was Arthur, a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical marketeer, who started the family business dynasty. He and his brothers bought a small company called Purdue Frederick; among their first products were laxatives and prescription earwax remover.
Arthur's branch of the family has not been involved in Purdue for many years and his daughter, Elizabeth, has spoken out against it, saying the company's role in America's drugs crisis is "morally abhorrent".
The lawsuits that were brought by the attorneys general of New York and Massachussetts named eight Sacklers. This includes Kathe, Mortimer, Richard, Jonathan and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, who are all the children of either Mortimer or Raymond. Then there's Theresa Sackler, who is Mortimer senior's widow; Beverly, Raymond's widow; and David Sackler, Raymond's grandson.
Members of the Sackler family are rarely seen in public.
The Internet
Hive Mind
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