NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL
Mall’s safety rules questioned
Zayn Mahmood, who fell in an open manhole at Dubai Mall last weekend at his home in Dubai / The National
DUBAI - JUNE 18: A father who watched in horror as his four-year-old son plunged 5.5 metres down an open manhole at Dubai Mall is demanding swift changes to the mall’s health and safety regulations to ensure it never happens again.
Shahid Mahmood, a British father of three, was watching a small fountain display on Saturday with his daughter Khadija, six, and Zayn, four, when Zayn fell down the concrete shaft.
The youngster was lucky, receiving only minor injuries – facial bruising and a cut finger – after a ladder broke his fall.
Mr Mahmood believes the manhole cover was removed during the display by a worker who was preparing to carry out routine maintenance on the water feature.
“I turned to see this huge hole behind my son,” he said. “I went towards him to get hold of him but he had already stepped back.”
The worker was inside the hole getting safety barriers to place around it when the accident happened.
Mr Mahmood wants the mall to exercise tighter control over the safety measures applied by all sub-contractors working on the site.
A statement issued on behalf of the mall said its management team was in regular contact with the family and was running its own investigation into the incident.
Mr Mahmood said an offer by Dubai Mall to pay Zayn’s medical expenses was unnecessary.
Describing the moment he saw Zayn fall “like a rag doll” down the hole, he said: “Everything went into slow motion. It was surreal. Your son’s fallen down a hole that wasn’t there a minute ago.”
Luckily a ladder leading to the bottom of the concrete cavern broke the toddler’s fall.
“It was fortuitous we were standing that side. If he had fallen from any of the other three sides of the manhole he would have been dead, I’m sure,” said Mr Mahmood, 36.
Relieved to hear Zayn scream, he climbed halfway down the manhole while calling out to his wife, Shahnaz – who was sitting just inside the mall entrance with their one-year-old child, Summayyal – and trying to ensure that his daughter Khadija was safe.
“While all this was going on, the worker who was down below proceeded to pick up my son and bring him to the surface,” he said. “I could see he was supporting his neck and he seemed OK. He was crying and there was lots of blood.”
In the 30 minutes Mr Mahmood said it took for the ambulance to arrive at the scene – apparently it had difficulty reaching the accident spot because of height restrictions – numerous staff from Dubai Mall arrived but no one, he said, appeared to be trained in first aid.
“Once the paramedics arrived they completely took control, putting the neck brace on, asking if he had been vomiting, asking if he felt dizzy, if he was steady on his feet, asking all the right questions.”
Zayn was strapped on to a stretcher, given oxygen, attached to heart and blood pressure monitors and taken at the family’s request to the American Hospital, where he underwent tests for internal bleeding, brain and spinal injuries.
At 6pm he was given the all-clear and discharged.
Dubai Police are investigating the incident, alongside a health and safety specialist from Dubai Municipality.
Mr Mahmood said he did not want to see the worker lose his job.
“He was just as shocked as anyone and I know he had a part to play within it but I don’t see how, in all of this, he could have done anything differently,” he said.
“I had to file a case or it would happen to someone else. I asked that the worker is not made a scapegoat, that he retains his job.”
Mr Mahmood says he is not interested in compensation. He simply wants assurances that safety regulations will be significantly tightened, also expressing concern about the lack of first-aid knowledge displayed by mall staff and the difficulties the ambulance faced in reaching them. He wants any “damages” that may be deemed appropriate to be donated to a children’s charity.
“I feel my son’s life has been saved and if someone else’s son or daughter’s life could be saved then that’s the best that I can ask,” he said.
A senior member of the worker’s sub-contracting firm, which is responsible for maintaining the fountain, arrived at the hospital with his wife to check on Zayn’s condition, but no one at the company was available to comment.
Man, 26, charged in fatal beating of restaurant owner
AL AIN - JUNE 18: Murder squad detectives have charged a man with killing an Indian entrepreneur whose body was dumped in a shallow grave near Al Ain International Airport.
The 26-year-old man, identified only as MDB, who also is from India, is accused of beating Parappurath Moidu to death with a club after they drove to MDB’s remote farm to discuss a business deal.
Police said MDB had been attempting to persuade Moidu to invest in his business.
Moidu vanished on May 31 – a day before his 60th birthday – and his battered body was found four days later, about 200 metres from the Al Ain airport road bridge.
Moidu, from the Malappuram district of Kerala, moved to the UAE 38 years ago and ran two restaurants and two grocery stores with his brothers Hamza and Hydros Haji.
Yesterday police said the suspect, driving a red car, had picked up Moidu at his restaurant in the Jimi district of Al Ain and driven him to the farm.
The two fought there and MDB struck Moidu several times about the head with a wooden bat, police said.
MDB searched Moidu as he lay unconscious and bleeding on the ground, officials say. He took Dh60, 10 Omani riyals and a mobile telephone before wrapping Moidu in a blanket and continuing the attack, said Col Hamad al Amimi, the head of Al Ain Police.
MDB then placed Moidu’s body in the boot of his car and drove to a place near the airport, where he dumped the body in a shallow, sandy grave, officials say.
Col al Amimi said police were alerted by a baker at one of Moidu’s restaurants.
The witness said he saw his employer climb into a red car with another Indian man.
When he attempted to reach Moidu on his mobile phone the next day and found it switched off, he notified the police and provided them with a description of the suspect and vehicle.
Al Ain Police are preparing to transfer the findings of their investigation to prosecutors.
Construction firms ducking heat rules
DUBAI - JUNE 18: About 85 per cent of construction companies in Dubai comply with the municipality’s regulations on preventing heat-related illnesses at work sites, the civic body said yesterday.
That means that hundreds of firms in the emirate still are not providing adequate water, proper work gear, shade and basic medical assistance at sites, officials said.
The statistics were revealed yesterday at the launch of the Safe and Healthy Summer campaign, a municipality initiative to help labourers and the public in general cope with the heat. The UAE Ministry of Labour also will impose the annual midday break rule in a few weeks, requiring companies to keep labourers out of the sun from 12:30 to 3pm.
Violators can face fines if they do not heed warnings, officials said.
The municipality said yesterday that inspectors would visit construction sites throughout summer.
“Apart from workers, common people face heat exhaustion every day, but it is often ignored,” said Redha Salman, director of Dubai’s Public Health and Safety Department. “A headache or exhaustion after facing the summer is normal as the temperatures increase.”
Heat stroke or heat exhaustion were common and often went unreported, he added.
Safe and Healthy Summer, which runs until July 4, will see municipality officials conduct lectures on issues that include correct fluid and food intake and how to spot symptoms of serious heat-related illness. Supervisors will conduct training at labour camps, work sites, shopping malls, bus stations and other public places.
Last month the Health Authority - Abu Dhabi (HAAD) launched its Safety in the Heat programme, which was organised with the Ministry of Labour.
Dr Jens Thomsen, section head of occupational and environmental health at HAAD, said at the time that heat-related illnesses were “one of the most important public-health-related problems during the summer months”.
“It impacts on safety because it causes a higher incidence of accidents and injuries among those affected by the heat,” he said.
Officials said that if the temperature exceeds 40C and humidity is above 60 per cent, a worker can lose up to 2 litres of fluid per hour. Such extreme sweating can lead to dehydration and other heat-related illnesses. Workers must drink two cups of water every half-hour and an electrolyte-replacement drink two to three times a day, the municipality said.
There are about 8,000 construction companies operating in the UAE, 3,000 to 4,000 of them in Dubai, according to estimates from the UAE Contractors’ Association.