– M Rafi Ahmed
A pall of gloom descended on the Arab world following the passing away of Prince Alwaleed bin Khaled bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. He was 36. Sadly, he had been in a coma since 2005 after he met with an accident in London where he was a student at a military academy. Following which, he was under treatment at the special facility set up at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh.
According to the Albawaba news portal, Saudi Arabia’s Sleeping Prince, whose real name is Prince Alwaleed bin Khaled bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud born in 1987, flew to the UK to pursue his education at a Military Academy in London. As fate would have it, the Prince who was travelling in a car along with his friends met with an accident in 2005 resulting in serious head injuries. No sooner, he was admitted to a hospital in London before flying him to Riyadh for further treatment.
In this backdrop, the Sleeping Prince’s situation caught the attention of people in the Arab world and globally, waiting to learn a positive update on his health condition, especially considering that he had been in a coma for over 20 years. Meanwhile, his father Prince Khalid bin Talal, speaking at a talk show Al-Ma’azzeb in 2017, revealed about the Sleeping Prince, including the accident and health developments.
On the day of the accident, the Sleeping Prince’s father, Prince Khalid bin Talal, had a feeling that something wrong was going to happen and refused to let his son go out that night, but the Sleeping Prince with his two friends convinced Prince Khalid bin Talal, and eventually he agreed and gave his son the permission to go out. Prince Khalid bin Talal called that “the father’s gut feeling”.
During the night of the accident, the Sleeping Prince’s father, Prince Khalid bin Talal was having dinner with Abdullah bin Yahya Al-Muallami, a Saudi diplomat who served as the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations in New York from 2011 until 2022. It may be noted that the Sleeping Prince and his two friends were thrown out from the roof hatch of the car in which they were travelling.
Immediately following the accident, the Sleeping Prince woke up and said: “How are my friends doing?” and then he fell into a lengthy coma. Meanwhile, his friends’ condition was OK after the accident. The Sleeping Prince’s father is grateful that his son was the one driving the car and took the hit and not any of his friends, because he couldn’t live with the guilt of his son causing hurt to his son’s friends and their families.
Sadly, the Sleeping Prince’s father lived with his son in the hospital for two years, and then for four years afterwards. His mother lived with him for 2.5 years. During that period, they couldn’t go home without their son. American and Saudi surgeons said that the prince would die and his body would decompose within 72 hours to a week after he underwent surgery after the accident.
Following doctors’ statements that the Sleeping Prince wouldn’t make it, his father had doubts of what to do, whether he would let his son stay connected to medical equipment or let him go. Then he had a wake-up moment when he asked himself: “Who am I to take away his life. If God intended to have him dead, he would do so without my or the doctor’s help. And this has shaken me.”
During the first 18 months, there were no movements, only involuntary motions from the bone marrow and spinal cord. Strange things were happening to him too: if specific sheikhs read the Qur’an to him, his blood pressure would rise. After the first 18 months, the Sleeping Prince started to breathe on his own for 3 months without the assistance of a mechanical ventilator.
After that, the Sleeping Prince started to respond to being touched and spoken to, not with everyone but to certain people, such as some doctors, nurses, and family members. Seeing this, doctors were convinced that something unusual was happening to the Sleeping Prince, such as why he was getting older, gaining weight and responding to specific stimulants.
