After scoliosis surgery, a perforated ulcer sent 16-year-old Montrealer Karim Ahmed-Belizer into septic shock and multi-organ failure. Four months in hospital didn’t stop him from studying, captaining his robotics team, and graduating on time.
“You know, I live through the effects every day, but it’s not something that I define myself. I’m usually thinking about what can I do in the future? What’s happening now? Then, well, all this happened in the past, or I was through a septic shock, and that’s woe is me,” said Ahmed-Belizer.
Iram Ahmed, Karim’s mother said, “It was excessively hard because this is a young man. He’s 17, 16 years old at that time. You see him at a certain level. He was functioning well. And to have to hold his hand to help him to walk, to bathe, to eat, it was as though he was an infant again.
Karim Ahmed-Belizaire lies in a hospital bed after recovering from septic shock (Submitted by: Iram Ahmed)
“As a mother, I can say that I’m excessively proud of Karim. because it takes such a huge amount of courage and resiliency to go through what he went through where he almost died. He had to relearn everything, maybe basic needs, how to satisfy them as going to the bathroom, eating, walking, and then deciding I’m still going to go back to school and finish my studies because all these special people came to visit me. Namely community members, WIBCA (West Island Black Community Association) members, mentors, people you didn’t really think would show up, but they did and gave him hope and it encouraged him to go back to school and then complete his studies. Now he wants to pursue (a career) also in the same field. It talks volumes when a community holds you up and just is accompanying you through something so difficult. That’s what I would say that he grew. We grew by realizing that we are part of something bigger.”
Karim is a talented STEM student whose passion for robotics and technology has already led to impressive accomplishments. As captain of the WIPCA robotics team, he helped lead his team from near the bottom of the standings to a semi-final finish in the Canadian robotics competition.
“Karim did the WIBCA interview for the scholarship. And they asked him, well, what happened during these months? And what happened to your grades? He’s like, oh, I just was in the hospital because of a septic shock. He minimized it. He still does it. He’s like, it’s not a big deal, mom. I have to move forward. I can’t ever use this as a reason to not do what I have to do. So he wants to take accountability. But that’s his strength of character,” said Ahmed.
Karim Ahmed-Belizaire poses in a hospital bed (Submitted by Iram Ahmed)
As for what it is about robotics that resonates with Ahmed-Belizer, he says, “It helps more with teamwork, how to lead, how to think, how to organize yourself.
“So one of the main reasons that I wanted to do robotics, it’s pushing me to become a software engineer at some point. So I’m using that as a little stepping stone. But yeah, it’s something that I thought at first was just for fun, but I deeply got invested into it. So even when I got, even when I was like injured, I was still like thinking, can I do robotics anyways? Maybe.”
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