[ 2014-02-08 ]

Mr and Mrs Torkornoo in this joyous mood after blessing their marriage five years ago

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 her 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,
Assitant Sub desk Editor, among others.

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

Source - The Mirror

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