An Indian man became famous after he had survived an Emirates Airlines crash-landing last month then subsequentially won £$1 million in a local lottery. 62-year-old Mohammad Basheer Khadar was on board the EK521 Emirates flight which exploded on the Dubai runway on 3rd August. Miraculously, he was one of the 282 passengers and 12 crew members who were safely evacuated after it was forced to execute an emergency crash-landing.
The Indian had purchased the lottery ticket on Eid that very same day while on his way to Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, to spend his holiday with his family. Three days after that lucky escape, Khader received news that his ticket numbers had all matched the Dubai Duty-Free Millennium Millionaire lottery.
Khadar felt incredibly lucky, to say the least, that he had survived the accident. He went on to thank the airline crew. “Escaping that fire unhurt was a miracle and I thanked God and the airline crew profusely that day. Then to discover that I won a lottery was frankly unbelievable in the beginning. I thought someone was playing a prank. But they told me patiently that it was no prank,” said Khadar.
"I Know What Dignity Of Labour Is All About"
Today, he lives in Dubai where he had resided since 1978 and is currently working as a fleet administrator at a car dealer group. Although his worries are far fewer these days, he recalls a time when life had been a lot harder. His son had suffered a fall only 13 days into his life and had sustained massive long-term injuries, rendering him paralyzed. Khader remembers having to take out a huge loan in order to assure the medical treatment that his son required.
“I have no great plans for how to spend the money. But I know what dignity of labour is all about, so once I retire from Dubai, I would like to go back to Kerala and start a small agricultural unit. I have seen what my son went through and would like to help children with medical issues,” said Khadar.
“I never once thought I would win and my wife would keep asking me why I was wasting the money,” he said."