Dubai: For almost two and a half hours June 19, their lives hung literally by a thread – mid-air and in full view of hundreds driving past them down the busy Sharjah-bound Al Ittihad Road.
Bangladeshi cleaners Mohammad Rashid, 22, and Mohammad Bulbul, 21, saw their nightmare end only after a dramatic rescue operation. They were stuck in a cradle on the 13th floor of a residential building in Al Nahda when its wires snapped around 4.30pm that day.
“We were so high up in the air and the cradle was so small, that every time I looked down I thought I would fall and die,” Bulbul told XPRESS, still visibly shaken and recovering from the fatigue moments after being rescued by Dubai Civil Defence.
The Civil Defence launched the rescue operation around 4.40pm and managed to bring the workers down at around 7pm.
“It was an extremely tough exercise. They (Dubai Civil Defence) first thought of breaking open the window in front of us, but then decided against it. Instead they began pulling us up from an open window a couple of levels above us after we were all secured tightly. It was like climbing a high mountain against gravity and so physically very demanding. It took about two hours, but their hard work eventually paid off as we emerged safe,” said Rashid, the more confident and calmer of the two.
“I wasn’t scared because I knew if death was inevitable, so be it. I was focusing on staying composed in the face of the tough conditions,” he added.
Out of a movie
A comment from the Dubai Civil Defence wasn’t available but according to eyewitnesses gathered at the time when XPRESS reached the site, the two were plucked out of danger after some real life drama.
“It wasn’t as simple as it looked in the end. They were stuck there all the while the rescue team was trying to work out a strategy. The scenes were as if taken from a movie,” said an onlooker.
Bulbul and his colleague had hopped on to the trolley as on any other work day that afternoon to clean the windows of the Al Nahda building. They were to complete all three lines of windows of the 28-floor building.
“It was business as usual for us. We started after 3pm just after our mid-day break, knowing we would be done by around 6pm but all hell broke loose when the wire connecting the cradle snapped, just about 90 minutes into the job at the half way stage,” recalled Rashid. “Hopefully it will never happen again.”
