Ahly was playing Geish in the quarter-finals of the Egyptian Cup. The score was tied at one when in the last minute of the first half Ahly s central defender Mohamed Seddik, 29, and Geish goalkeeper Wa el Khalifa crashed in mid-air as they lunged for a cross. They both fell awkwardly to the ground. Khalifa was up in an instant; Seddik lay prone. With his back facing the TV cameras, Seddik s body started to twist and contort and shutter.
Players and coaches from both sides and other multitudes who came out from nowhere surrounded the fallen player. When it became apparent that this was no ordinary knock, that Seddik was not feigning injury to win a penalty, and that something was horribly wrong, some became visibly distraught as they buried their hands in their face, slapped their hands together in disbelief and looked ready to hear the worst. For five eternal minutes Cairo Stadium and those watching the proceedings on TV stood still.
It was happening again.
In August last year, another Ahli player, Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, died of a sudden heart attack while training, his life stilled forever at age 23.
Abdel-Wahab s death shocked the nation but mercifully, there was to be no rerun. Within every crisis there emerges a hero and Seddik s story is no exception. The heroine of the hour was petite Dr Rania Radwan, who after jumping out of the ambulance sent to the rescue, made her way past the frenzied muddle surrounding Seddik to try to get to him before it was all over. Radwan was credited with having prevented Seddik, suffering from a concussion, from swallowing his tongue which, had it landed on the windpipe, would have killed him in seconds. As blood dripped from his nose and utter mayhem reigned around her, Radwan calmly inserted a tube down the throat to keep Seddik breathing.
Radwan has since become the darling of the media. What happened to the diminutive doctor budding actors can only dream of. In the week since the Seddik saga Radwan has become an overnight star, making the rounds of late-night TV talk shows and appearing on the front page of almost all the dailies and weeklies. (Radwan, 25, the ambulance attendant and driver would be given a three-month salary bonus by the minister of health who will also help her continue higher education with the aim of becoming a fellow, and to take an advanced course in emergency treatment).
By this time, the club had received a call from Gamal Mubarak, the deputy vice-president of the ruling National Democratic Party, and aka President Mubarak s son, who was watching the horror show on TV and phoned Ahly club for more information.
A teary-eyed referee Fahim Omar had ended the first half before it was time and did not start the second until word came that Seddik, now in hospital, would make it. Had he died I would have retired, Omar was later quoted as saying. We believe him.
Seddik s near death brought inevitable comparisons with that of Abdel-Wahab, whose demise provoked a media inquisition as to who was to blame. So, too, the media and public asked what had been learnt, if anything, from the post-Abdel-Wahab period up to and including Seddik s close call. The questions were many: Was indeed the Cairo Stadium ambulance prevented momentarily from entering the track surrounding the field, then briefly stopped before being allowed onto the pitch where Seddik laid? Was it true the ambulance did not possess the instrument that brings the tongue back to where it belongs after such accidents, which are not uncommon in contact sports? Why does a club like Ahly which has around 70,000 family members, dozens of sports on offer, and rakes in millions, have just one tiny rudimentary clinic that can handle nothing more serious that knee scrapes?
Like in all slow-moving countries, it took a near tragedy on Egypt s sports fields to get things moving. Almost LE1.5 billion will now go to ambulances, which go for LE100,000 apiece, and especially sports-related health clinics around the country. Around 6,000 ambulance attendants will be trained with help from other countries.
Seddik will return to training next week. His story had a happy ending. He lived to tell it.
