Abdullah Abdel-Gawad/Facebook He said the work was exhausting and he and his colleagues barely slept. He said he's proud of his role in the unusual event but felt he got little official recognition. When the 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-size container ship, became lodged in the banks of the canal on March 23, and Abdul-Gawad's boss needed him urgently.