Engine completely gave out on the highway, needed a proper tow fast

[buttlerlee]

I am still processing what happened this afternoon so figured writing it out here might help me calm down while also getting some input from people who know more about this than I do. I was on the highway heading back into the city when the engine just made this awful grinding noise and then lost power completely, luckily I managed to coast onto the shoulder before it fully stopped rather than being stranded in an actual lane, which honestly could have been a lot worse given the speed everyone tends to drive at on that stretch. Sitting there with hazards on and cars zooming past felt pretty nerve wracking, and I quickly realized this was not something a simple jumpstart was going to fix since the issue seemed mechanical rather than just a dead battery, meaning I needed an actual tow rather than a quick roadside fix. A friend I called for advice mentioned looking into Fast car recovery in Abu Dhabi since apparently response times can vary a lot depending on who you call, and being stuck on a highway shoulder is not somewhere you want to be waiting around any longer than necessary given the traffic speeds involved. I searched quickly on my phone and found a page through that described their recovery process, which helped me understand roughly what to expect in terms of timing and how the tow itself would work, since I had never actually needed a full recovery service before and had no real reference point going in. Someone did arrive within a reasonable amount of time considering the location, and the whole process of loading the car and getting me to a nearby garage went smoother than I expected given how stressed I was in the moment. Curious if others have needed a full recovery like this on the highway specifically, and whether response times tend to hold up even during busier traffic periods, since I imagine shoulder pickups probably come with extra safety considerations compared to a regular parking lot breakdown. Also wondering what typically causes an engine to fail this suddenly without much warning beforehand, since everything seemed completely normal right up until it was not.