Ten rescued in stable condition

Dubai: Ten men rescued from the burning Fortune Tower remained in Rashid Hospital yesterday in stable conditions.
Eight of the men were admitted to Ward 20 on Thursday evening whilst two more were admitted yesterday morning suffering from smoke inhalation.

Ahmad Eisa, head of facilities management at Rashid Hospital, said 41 patients had been received in total following the fire near Dubai Marina and most had been discharged within 24 hours.

"There were only four or five serious cases which were admitted for a short stay in hospital. We will have to see how long they stay. Two expired on the way to the hospital," said Eisa.

One man who died has not been identified and another was Hamza Kalari Kunjabi, a 27-year-old Indian.

The survivors are now under observation, said nurse-in-charge Deena Al Moussa. "They are all stable. We had eight last night, and two more this morning were admitted for oxygen and observation," she said.

At Dubai Hospital, 16 patients were admitted on Thursday and all but one have been discharged. "He is asthmatic and so he has not been discharged, perhaps today or tomorrow he can leave," said Mahmoud Rahimi, the public relations officer.

He said there had been no deaths at Dubai Hospital.
Survivor Ramesh Raja, 23, from India said he was on the top floor when he saw smoke coming up from below.

"It was coming up really fast there was smoke and flames," he said, sitting on the edge of his hospital bed still looking a little shell-shocked, at Rashid Hospital.

"If I had stayed five more minutes I'm sure I would have died in that room. The smell was so bad and you couldn't breathe. For two hours we tried to find a way to get down to the ground floor but we couldn't so we went up instead," said Raja.

He said he was with about 20 others sitting and waiting for someone to come and help them. "We were on the roof and we saw the helicopter coming around and around. We just waited. I was so scared I couldn't look over the side. We were there for a long time," said Raja.

"Eventually a fireman came up and showed us the way to get down. The smoke was very less by that time and we could walk down the stairs," said Raja.