A Ghanaian who just completed training as an officer of the United States army has died while trying to rescue people from a fire in an apartment.
The deceased, Emmanuel Mensah, who got into the US about five years ago and was a member the Army National Guard.
After completing his military training with the rank of private first class earlier in December, he returned to his apartment on Prospect Avenue in Bronx, New York where he died on the night of Thursday, December 28, as one of 12 people.
{loadmodule mod_banners,nativeads}
Reports suggest that the 28-year-old soldier had already saved four people but got unlucky while trying to save another one. “He brought four people out. When he went to bring a fifth person out, the fire caught up with him", Twum Bredu, his uncle told the New York Times.
Private Mensah was found in Apartment 15, his uncle said, but he lived in Apartment 11, with a friend of his father’s who was at home with his wife and four children. Private Mensah, a decorated soldier who had been awarded a medal for marksmanship and was planning to join the military police, got that family to safety, then pulled out four more people, his uncle said, before returning to the building.
He never emerged; the authorities said he died of smoke inhalation, the New York Times report added.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Private Mensah was not the only Ghanaian to have died in the inferno.
{loadmodule mod_banners,nativeads}
Five others, Hannah Donkor, 17, Gabriel Yaw Sarkodie, 48, Solomon Donkor, 49, Justice Opoku, 54 and William Donkor (age unknown) also died. President Nana Akufo-Addo has condoled the affected families and promised his government's support for them.
Â
primenewsghana.com