UAE police officers rescue stranded Indian motorist twice

Bishruddin Sharqi is still in 'wild wonder', in his own words. And there are enough reasons for him to be.

Sharqi experienced the dedication and commitment of the Sharjah Police officials twice in a day. While one officer rescued him after he got stranded in the desert with his family, within hours, another police team changed the tyre of his vehicle to save them from a possible crash.

Wednesday was a normal day for Sharqi, a resident of Al Nahda, until he went out on a drive with his wife, children and mother-in-law, who is on a visit from their hometown of Pattambi in Kerala, India, at night. They drove through the desert areas of Sharjah to enjoy the cool and fresh weather.

While enjoying the sand dunes alongside the road crossing the car's tyres got trapped in the sand.

"We tried our best to drive out by deflating the tyres, putting stones under the wheels and removing sand from around the tyres. But all ended up in vain," said Sharqi, who is running a public relations media company in the UAE.

Fed up, the children started having food there while others continued their efforts to drive the vehicle out. Later, a worker on a quad bike reached for their help, but still they couldn't succeed.

"We released a sigh of relief while a big four-wheeler stopped before us. A smart guy wearing a jacket that read " UAE Rescue" approached and offered help. He tried to deflate the tyre once again and tried to drive the car off the sands. While his primary plan failed to work out, he towed the vehicle out, with one of us on the driving seat," Sharqi told Khaleej Times.

After bringing the car out of sand, the rescue officer even gave advice on the risks of further driving it on the road as the tyres were short of air. "He told me about the nearest petrol station from where I could fill my tyres. As driving on the



road was risky, he taught me an off-road way to reach a particular junction. And then, he smiled and drove off."

However, Sharqi and family failed to find the fuel station mentioned by the officer and had to drive on the road. He had to drive very slow on Sharjah-Mleiha Road because of the near-to flat tyres. "I realised it was very risky as other vehicles wouldn't be able to drive that slow and cause an accident."

There came the second saviour.

A beaconed vehicle overtook Sharqi's car and instructed him to stop.

"We drove the car to a convenient place just before the police vehicle had parked. As I had many 'police experiences' back home, I came out of my SUV with a set of anxieties. The officer greeted me and shook hands.

"To my surprise, the officer advised me on the risk of my slow speed and warned that the back tyre was almost 'flat'. He enquired whether I had a spare tyre inside the car and I could manage to change the tyre. I replied that "I will call for a support" . He said "no worries.. I can help you change the tyre"."

Sharqi said he was really ashamed to see the officer started working like a mechanic. "I just had to hand over the required tools to him. He crawled under the vehicle, kneeled down to remove the nuts and bolts, rolled the tyre and even packed the tools after finishing the work."

Before jumping in to his car, the officer didn't forget to say some sweet words to the children and some Hindi words to Sharqi.