"I was a little bit upset," he added. "But I was really so motivated because I wanted the world to say: 'He did it.'" //

And for Abdel-Gawad, even the tugboats didn't offer the same spectacle as his excavator.

"Nobody really focused on those," he said, speaking of the memes about the situation. "It was just the excavator because of the huge size difference, such a tiny excavator in front of such a gigantic ship."

Another factor that drained any humor from the situation for him was how frightening it was to be underneath the enormous vessel, he said.

From his estimation, the Ever Given was lodged about 6 meters higher than where it would naturally float, and his job was to pry at the rock and mud encasing it. He said he had a very real fear that instead of refloating the ship, he would destabilize it, causing it to topple onto him.

"If you see the size of the ship, and you see the size of the excavator, it is absolutely terrifying," he said. Another two workers in excavators, who arrived at the scene a couple of days in, were too scared to work directly beneath the ship, Abdel-Gawad said.