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Comatose OFW wakes up after eight months


MANILA, Philippines - After months of being lifeless in a Saudi hospital, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) finally woke up from an eight-month long coma, a migrants’ group reported. Ruben de Leon Jr., 25, was working as a helper in Jeddah for two years when a car driven by a 16-year-old Saudi boy knocked him unconscious in September last year. Migrante-Middle East was informed of De Leon’s improving condition by his relative, Paul Norman Mercado, who is also an OFW in Jeddah. “[He] is now able to recognize his friends and visitors and is recuperating well," said John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-ME regional coordinator. In his free time, Mercado looks after De Leon who remains bedridden in the Dr. Soliman Fakeeh Hospital in Jeddah, Migrante added. De Leon is one of the recently reported OFWs who have been hit by minors driving illegally in Saudi Arabia. Last month, Ryan D. Fajardo was hit by a car while he was jogging along a street in Taif, a highland city in Saudi Arabia’s western region. Reports said a Saudi teenager on a “joyride" killed the OFW. [See: Teenage 'joyride driver' kills OFW in Jeddah] De Leon was deployed by Concept Placement Resources, Inc., a local recruitment agency in the Philippines to work as a helper for a Saudi employer in 2006. After completing his two-year employment contract in July 2008, he was re-hired by his employer. Meanwhile, Migrante assailed the government for not acting with dispatch in facilitating the visit of De Leon’s mother, Marissa, to Saudi Arabia last year. According to the group, Marissa had sought Migrante’s assistance after the Department of Foreign Affairs, her son’s recruitment agency and the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration, did not grant her request to visit De Leon last September. De Leon has yet to be released from the hospital. - GMANews.TV
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