What was meant to be the start of a better future ended in tragedy for 31-year-old Ahmed Adel, who died of cardiac arrest just days after arriving in the UAE to support his family, according to Al Watan and Gulf News.
Adel, a father of two young boys aged four and 18 months, left Alexandria after his small grocery business collapsed. Hoping to ease the financial burden on his wife and children, he accepted a construction job in the Central Region.
On his very first day at the site, relatives said he suddenly collapsed. Co-workers initially suspected heatstroke, but a coroner’s report later confirmed the cause of death as cardiac arrest. “He didn’t even get the chance to settle in. He worked one day, and on that day, he died,” his cousin Ibrahim Mahrous said.
The news devastated his family in Egypt. Adel’s father, who had already lost his wife three years ago, was left grief-stricken over the death of his only son. His wife, who had spoken to him just hours before the incident, was crushed by the call confirming his sudden passing. “It was a shock that crushed the whole family,” Mahrous said.
Relatives recounted that while Adel told his family he was fine, he privately admitted that the job was taking a toll on him. His final words to his wife reflected both his exhaustion and his hope of finding another path: “He told her he was tired and wanted to look for something else,” Mahrous recalled. “But fate did not give him the chance.”
It took 11 days before his body was flown back to Alexandria, where he was buried in the family plot. Neighbours and relatives came to pay their respects, remembering him not only as a dedicated family man but also as a former bodybuilding champion in Alexandria with no history of smoking, addiction, or chronic illness.
