Couple die same day within one hour

The death of 64-year-old pensioner, Mr Charles Aheto Torkornoo, a former Night Editor of the Daily Graphic has allegedly triggered the death of his wife, Mrs Antonina Eyivi-Sossou Torkornoo, 60, a businesswoman, barely an hour after news of his death got to her.

Some bereaved persons who were at the mortuary, including the mortuary attendants at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital who heard about the death of the couple, are still dumbfounded because they claimed this tragedy, in which both husband and wife died within an hour was very unusual.

They further claimed they had heard of couples dying a few weeks/months after one partner had passed on, but never had they heard of one couple dying immediately after the other.

One of the mortuary attendants, James Agozo, who said he had been working at the Korle Bu morgue for close to 30 years, claimed the death of Mr and Mrs Torkornoo was the first of its kind he had heard throughout his career.

Incidentally, the last daughter of the couple got married on Saturday, February 1, 2014, and was followed with a thanksgiving service the following Sunday.

According to Mr Romeo Ebenezer Torkornoo, a son of the departed couple who had been married for the past 33 years, he was at his workplace when he had a call from his uncle that his father, who lived at Kasoa and had been ill for the past three months, had passed on.

He said he had to move to Kasoa immediately to help prepare his dad’s body for the mortuary.

However, ‘not quite long after I had left the office, I had another call informing me that my mum, who was hale and hearty, had visited Tesano, a suburb of Accra, but had complained of being unwell after my dad’s condition was made known to her’.

According to Mr Torkonoo, ‘I therefore changed my mind and drove to Tesano to pick my mum with the intention of sending her to a hospital in the vicinity, but she gave up the ghost a few metres after I had negotiated a curve towards the hospital.’

The grieving Mr Torkornoo said in that distraught state, he did not know what to do. He later decided to send his mum’s body to the morgue at Korle Bu.

After depositing the body at the morgue, he and his sister continued to Kasoa to convey the remains of his father also to the same mortuary.

According to Mr Torkornoo, most of the people he and his siblings and other family members encountered at the morgue expressed shock and wondered how cruel fate could be.

The late Mr Torkornoo was employed by the then Graphic Corporation on December 1, 1974, and retired on?April 21, 2009, after 35 years of service. He was one time the Assistant Production Editor, Assistant Head of Special Projects, Assistant Sub desk Editor, among others.

The couple were survived by five children, Romeo, Gifty, Charlestene, Valentina and Mawumenyo Torkonoo.