Review of Amwaj Abu Soma – HurghadaRoom 2419 | Stay: June 18–21
I rarely write reviews, but what happened during our stay compels me to share this experience so that no other family finds themselves in the same terrifying situation due to negligence.
On the second day of our stay, around 2:30 PM, my young daughter was completely fine. She had been playing normally, was active, healthy, and behaving exactly as usual. She fell asleep next to me, and suddenly I heard a strange sound. When I looked at her, her eyes were fixed in a frightening way, she was making unusual noises, and she was completely unresponsive. I called her name, shook her gently, and got no reaction. When I tried to stand her up, she collapsed.
Within moments, she started having seizures. Her hands twisted unnaturally, she lost control of her bladder, and she appeared to be unconscious with her eyes still open. Everything happened in a matter of minutes.
Panicking, my first instinct was to seek help from the hotel. Surely, I thought, a resort of this size would have a doctor or emergency response system. I called the reception repeatedly from the room phone. No answer. My husband tried calling the hotel’s mobile number listed on Google. No answer.
At the same time, I called an ambulance and continued trying to reach reception, desperately hoping that someone from the hotel would respond and help us until medical assistance arrived.
For nearly 30 minutes, nobody answered.
Then came the biggest shock of all.
The ambulance driver called me and said he was standing at the hotel entrance but security would not allow him to enter because he did not have authorization. This was not a private vehicle—it was an official government ambulance responding to a medical emergency involving a child having seizures.
I was screaming into the phone, telling him that nobody from the hotel was responding. He kept saying that the hotel would contact us. We waited several more minutes. Still no response from anyone.
Eventually, we had no choice but to carry our daughter ourselves and run outside to reach the ambulance. To this day, I don't know whether moving her in that condition could have made things worse.
As I was leaving in complete panic, one staff member approached and asked, in a remarkably insensitive manner, “What’s wrong with her?”
Thankfully, at the hospital, our daughter was stabilized and is now doing well. We thank God for that.
However, I cannot stop thinking about the countless scenarios that could have ended differently because of the hotel's failure to answer emergency calls and the delay caused by refusing immediate ambulance access.
I contacted the Tourism Police, and an officer kindly came to the hospital and spent about half an hour trying to help us reach a satisfactory resolution. By that point, however, I had completely lost trust in the hotel and decided to leave that same night.
I did not proceed with a formal report because we were informed that, as non-residents of Hurghada, we would need to go directly to the prosecutor's office. Our nerves were shattered, my children were traumatized after seeing their sister in that condition, and all I wanted was to take my family home.
I am sharing this experience not out of anger, but out of concern. When a child is having a medical emergency, every second matters. No family should have to face delays, unanswered calls, or barriers to emergency medical access during the most frightening moments of their lives.
Hagar E2026-06-21
