The excavator operator, who tried to free the Ever Giving ship last month, said he had not yet received payment for the days worked and criticized the meme that emerged on the Internet due to the situation. In an interview with Business Insider, the 28-year-old, Abdullah Abdul-Gawad, says that he and his colleagues tried 21 hours a day – almost without sleep – and they did not find the situation funny.
Abdul-Gawad He said the team takes rest in the barracks used by the border guards who work nearby during mission days. “They knew that if we went home, they wouldn’t see skin or hair for eight or nine hours.”
The group slept for about three hours a night, and when the effort was successful on March 29, Abdul-Gawad said that he and his colleagues were “almost dead from exhaustion”.
“We were forced to our limits,” he says. However, for him, the result changed the sensation. “As soon as we were exhausted, when we saw the ship leaving, it seemed as if we had suffered fatigue, due to a feeling of accomplishment.”
The performance of the scene, as memes, did not please the operator, who stated that the situation was indeed very dangerous.
“The point is that I feared that the ship might be leaning too much from one side or the other. Because if it falls towards me, it’s goodbye to me, and goodbye to the excavator.”
“If you look at the size of the ship and you see the size of the excavator, it is absolutely terrifying.”
Abdul-Gawad performed the flip-flop operation and, for him, Memes felt that “everyone was just kidding” the situation. But that’s exactly why they didn’t stop working.
He said, “It made me so determined.” “I was like, ‘You’re making fun of me.’
The young man also commented that the mission was tense. “It can’t be really fun for me because I didn’t know if it was going to leave the ship or not, and I was in the middle of the situation.”
He said: “I felt that instead of joking, people could really help convince me that I could take off this ship.”
Following the success of the operation, Abdul-Gawad said that he was barely involved in the ceremony and that there was no official recognition for his performance.
However, he says that he is proud to participate in the work.
“It’s an achievement for Egypt at first, but it’s also an achievement for me. It’s a thing that probably happens once in a lifetime or, you know, maybe twice. It’s a thing to be proud of. “
