AIR ASIA

AirAsia team's gift to needy

CHARITY CLIMB: RM100,000 raised to help buy articial limbs for 15 people

Air Asia’s regional head of engineering Anaz Ahmad Tajuddin (left) presenting a mock cheque for RM100,000 to some of the artificial limb recipients at Balai Berita, Bangsar, yesterday. Pic by S. Sugumaran

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KUALA LUMPUR: IMAGINE waking up in hospital to find your right leg missing and your mother sobbing by your bed.
This was the horror Muhammad Pisabillillah Mat Zain faced when he woke up early last year after nearly two weeks in a coma.
The last thing that Pisabillillah remembers is hitching a ride on his brother's motorcycle to school early one morning and then seeing a car from the opposite lane heading straight at him after overtaking another motorcycle.
"I woke up feeling normal. It was only when I looked under the sheets that I realised I had only one leg. But I can still feel my right leg, almost as if it was there," Pisabillillah said yesterday of the accident that has changed his life.
The 19-year-old had his right leg ripped off from the pelvic bone.
He also has to use a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.
The colostomy bag is a removable, disposable bag that permits sanitary collection and disposal of bodily wastes.
Pisabillillah also lost his confidence when his schoolmates teased him about the colostomy bag.
His mother, Akhmal Ghazali, was distraught when she found out about it, but nothing could persuade him to return to school.
"That is when I thought that getting him an artificial leg would at least make him happier and motivate him to go to school since he would be sitting the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination this year," said the mother of nine from Besut, Terengganu.
Help came in the form of a charity climbing expedition up Mount Kinabalu in April by the engineering team of AirAsia Berhad to raise RM100,000 to help the needy.
The idea was mooted when one of them saw an article in the New Straits Times in February which highlighted the plight of several disabled individuals who needed artificial limbs.
AirAsia head of engineering Anaz Ahmad Tajudin said they had been organising annual Mount Kinabalu climbs since 2008 and decided to do it for a good cause this year.
His team decided to channel the fund to the NST Charity Fund to help those in need of prosthetic limbs.
"We feel everyone should have a second chance in life.
"This is our way of helping people with disabilities get back on their feet," he said after handing over the funds at Balai Berita, Bangsar, here, to Pisabillillah and 14 others who are also in need of prosthetic limbs.
With the money, Pisabillillah would now be able to have a prosthetic leg connected from the hip.
"I'm lucky because AirAsia and the NST are helping us.
"I want to go to school again and complete my SPM," he said with a smile

S.K. THANUSHA DEVI 

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