Good Samaritan braves desert to rescue 3-year-old boy and parents

Muscat: A three-year-old boy and his family who’d gotten stranded in the deserts of the Sharqiyah Sands were rescued by a kind-hearted Omani who helped Royal Oman Police search teams locate them after seven hours of searching.
Amer Mabrook Al Ghelani received an award by the Royal Oman Police for his willingness to provide help in looking for the family. It was his knowledge of the terrain that made it possible for him to help the police, while braving the harsh conditions of the desert.
Since so many tourists come to explore the Sharqiyah Sands, the company that had rented the vehicle to this family had installed GPS in all of their four wheelers.
“My friends who worked as policemen informed me that a foreign family had been reported missing in Al Sharqiyah Sands, after the owner of the rental car office told officers that he had been trying to call the family, but their mobile phone appeared to have been switched off,” recalled Al Ghelani. “This is when I approached the police to offer them my help.”
“As the GPS had been switched on, the owner of the vehicle was able to inform the nearest police station, which is located in Bidiyah,” recalled the 27-year-old. “Policemen from there were sent the latest coordinates of the vehicle’s location, and they shared this with me. When I received the coordinates of the vehicle, I estimated that site to be about 73 kilometres from Bidiyah.”
Al Ghelani and the search teams departed the town at about 10pm, as he guided them past the sand dunes and continuously shifting, unpredictable terrain of the desert, which made it vital for them to know how to return to Bidiyah as well.
“We found them at around four o’clock in the morning,” he said. “They had no food to eat, nor did they have any tents to sleep in, or blankets with which to cover themselves from the elements. They had no petrol for their vehicle either. All they had was a little water, which would not have lasted very long.
“I was very shocked when I saw that they had a three-year-old child with them,” added the Good Samaritan. “I thank God we were able to find them when we did, because if were even a little bit later, their health would’ve begun to deteriorate, and this would’ve been particularly harmful for their child.
Al Ghelani went on to say, “We gave them food, water and covered them with blankets. Once they had recovered and felt better, we left the site, and returned to Bidiyah around five am, the foreign family’s health is good and their child’s health is also stable. I am truly happy to have helped the police in finding this family, particularly so because the child and his parents are all well.”