If you want to look for true heroes of challenge and will, go to Ismailia, where Captain Walaa Hafez lives. A former officer in the Naval Special Forces who currently works as a ship pilot at the Suez Canal Authority, he has raised Egypt's name high on the world stage by achieving two underwater diving records that were entered in the record books, the first while in full health, and the second after an accident that left him with chronic quadriplegia that rendered him unable to move.
Captain Walaa Hafez was the first to cross the New Suez Canal before its official opening and is the founder of the initiative for the longest human chain underwater carrying the flag of Egypt. He has a determination and will that conquer the impossible.
Captain Walaa Hafez set a Guinness World Record in 2015 for the longest time spent underwater, at 51 hours, 24 minutes and 13 seconds. He also prepared to set a record for the world's longest continuous non-stop dive, covering a distance of 100 kilometers at a maximum depth of 6 meters in less than 24 hours.
After this achievement, Hafez was involved in a car accident that nearly ended his life, had divine providence not intervened to ensure he survived, but he was left with chronic quadriplegia that cost him the ability to move and control his entire body.
Amid this darkness, Walaa Hafez lit the torch of challenge and will to illuminate his life, doing what he had dreamed of in his imagination and returning to diving after 10 years, which caused astonishment. Faith in God and the creed of an Egyptian naval officer enabled him to set a new Guinness World Record, becoming the world's first person with chronic quadriplegia to dive and stay underwater, while suffering from respiratory problems and an inability to move, for 6 hours, 4 minutes and 45 seconds at a depth of 5 meters, inside the Suez Canal Authority swimming complex, during the current month of August. Hafez said: "I wanted to prove to myself that I could do anything impossible."
In a related context, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Sherif Fathy last week honored Captain Walaa Hafez, the former Naval Special Forces officer who currently works as a ship pilot at the Suez Canal Authority, in recognition of his global achievement after entering the Guinness World Records for performing the longest underwater dive by a person with disabilities after being left quadriplegic.
Read also:
Egyptian Sets Guinness Record for Longest Diving Distance in Sharm El-Sheikh on November 26
