2 Kids die in locked car

Two children, aged two and four, lost their lives through suffocation last Saturday after they were trapped in their father’s car at Asofa, a part of Achimota in Accra.

Four-year-old Samuel Okoampah-Ntow and two-year-old Samuela Okoampah met their fate when they found their way into their father’s taxi after the man had parked it and went into a church with their mother not too far from their house for a meeting.

The children, according to a police report, as their father and mother were in the church, found their way into the car after they were left to play with their friends from the neighbourhood within the church premises.

They were trapped in the taxi with registration number GT 7187-13, gasping for air until they were discovered unconscious by their parents when the duo returned from the meeting.

It was a melancholic spectacle as the parents found it difficult to contain their emotions.

The unconscious kids were rushed to the Aneija Clinic at Tantra Hill, Achimota, but were pronounced dead on arrival by a doctor.

It was discovered that the father, Francis Okoampah-Ntow, did not lock the car when he let the kids out to play, making it possible for them to gain easy access into the taxi, and their eventual suffocation.

The remains of the two have been deposited at the Police Hospital morgue for autopsy.

There have been many instances of children dying in locked cars in both Accra and Kumasi in the past few years.

Accra’s East Legon witnessed one such incident last two years when two kids went into a parked car in a fitting workshop and got trapped, dying before help could reach them.

Their mother, who had left them at home and gone shopping, returned to hear about the tragedy.