Special team to evacuate 400kg Egyptian to Dubai hospital today

A civil defence team backed up by a doctor, nurse and special lifting gear, will today attempt to evacuate 400-kilo Sameer Mahmoud Al Nahas from the bed he has lain in for 18 months.

Al Nahas, a 57-year-old Egyptian, is too fat to get through his own doorway, and has lain supine in bed unable to get up.

The rescue teams need to get him to hospital in Dubai because of other medical problems apart from his obesity, including blood clots in the head which render him unconscious for much of the time.

The 880-pound hulk cannot move freely, and his family have reportedly left him and gone back to Egypt. But according to friends, the obesity is just one of the problems besetting the former agricultural engineer.

Other sundry problems include a Dh9,000 debt to his landlord; unpaid utility bills worth Dh1,600; an expired visa which ran out way back in 1994; and no health card or insurance cover, explained his friend Mustapha Wahid Shawqi, who has helped care for him.

But the biggest puzzle remains why Al Nahas has gained so much weight. Friends say his weight shot up when he lost his business. The only thing people are sure about is that the weight gain has served to grossly exacerbate his problems.

Shawqi explained that Al Nahas had set up a business in Ajman which began to lose customers and which he eventually lost owing, he claimed, to 'friends' robbing him of his money.

"Initially other friends also cared for him, but one by one they have gone their different paths. Even his brother, who lives in the UAE, has not cared to visit him. Today, only I am left," Shawqi claimed.

But help now appears to be at hand, with sources suggesting people in high places are now taking a personal interest in the case.

Al Nahas will be assisted by Ajman Medical District officials as well as Civil Defence personnel during the evacuation.

"We are geared to help him in every way possible and get him the medical aid he badly requires," said Abdul Rahman Y. Al Nuaimi, director of the district. "We have already assigned a doctor, a nurse and all the required equipment."