Dubai: A young Indian expat in the UAE, who was planning to migrate to the US, died of cardiac arrest just before he collected his passport stamped with the US visa, relatives said.
Tilu Mammen Thomas, 33, and his wife Feby, were at a post office in Dubai on Monday morning to receive their passports when Tilu collapsed, the relatives told Gulf News.
They said Tilu, an engineer with a French company based in Dubai International Airport, was planning to migrate with his family to the US where his wife’s family members are settled.
The couple has two children — Isabella, four years, and Gabriel, one-and-a-half-year-old.
“On Monday, Tilu had not gone to the office because his stomach was upset after eating food from outside on the previous night. Other than that, he did not have any health issues or any family history of heart attacks,” one relative said.
Another relative said the couple had received information about their passports stamped with their US visas arriving on that morning, following which they visited the Hor Al Anz post office.
“While they were yet to collect the passports, he suffered chest pain and uneasiness and collapsed around 11:30am,” he said.
Tilu, who was raised in Abu Dhabi where his parents and sister still live, was declared brought dead at a Dubai hospital where he was rushed to.
Several people including his friends, colleagues and members of the Mar Thoma Church in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, attended a funeral service held at the embalming centre in the medical fitness centre in Muhaisnah.
Everyone is still shocked at his untimely death, the relatives said.
Tilu’s body was flown to his hometown in Pathanamthitta district in the south Indian state of Kerala on Wednesday morning. The funeral will be held at his hometown on Friday after his wife’s relatives from the US reach there, the relatives said.
