The guy driving the Suez Canal excavator said he got by on 3 hours of sleep a night and hasn’t been paid his overtime yet

The guy driving the Suez Canal excavator said he got by on 3 hours of sleep a night and hasn’t been paid his overtime yet

When excavator operator Abdullah Abdul-Gawad learned that there was an emergency at the Suez Canal, he thought it meant he would have no work that day.

Instead the hours ahead “” and the next five days and nights “” had quite the opposite in store. The Ever Given, a skyscraper-sized container ship, lodged itself into the banks of the canal on March 23, and Abdel-Gawad's boss needed him urgently.

"We need you to get in a car and come right now because you're the only excavator driver who's close enough," Abdel-Gawad, speaking to Insider via interpreter, recalled being told.

Describing the scene that faced him at work, Abdel-Gawad told Insider: "It was really quite something... it was awe-inspiring."

The 28-year-old, who has been operating excavators since university, said that he and his colleagues worked 21-hour days, barely sleeping “” and still have not received their overtime pay.

Here's how he said events unfolded from inside the excavator cabin. 

David vs Goliath

Freeing the Ever Given was an international effort, with winches, dredgers, tugboats and excavators all drafted in. But Abdul-Gawad was the man who was literally at the rock face of the problem. Once he got to the base of the ship, there was no choice but to