Correspondence from Western Region

A 10-year-old boy has been electrocuted to death at Beppoh, a community in the Prestea Huni Valley municipality.

Emmanuel Owusu Ampoma, a fourth-grade pupil at Beppoh Methodist Primary School, was playing with his friends when the unfortunate happened on the afternoon of Saturday, January 7, 2023.

Speaking to GhanaWeb, the Assembly member for the area, Thomas Yaw Enyam, explained that, “someone tapped electricity with a 2.5mm cable from a store for his business, but the cable got torn with one side of the cable hanging in the middle of the road. So, while the children were playing, the boy held the cable, which electrocuted him by lifting him up and landing him on the ground. He was quickly rushed to the Beppoh Clinic but unfortunately died on the way to the health centre.”

He explained that he informed the Bogoso Police Command, who came there for investigation.

The Assembly member disclosed to GhanaWeb that Emmanuel Owusu Ampoma was a guide to his visually impaired mother, but his demise has brought a lot of challenges to the mother as to who would help her in all the things Ampoma was helping her to do because of her impairment.

In a video, the woman is seen crying bitterly, calling for her son to come and guide her to a place.

Information gathered by GhanaWeb indicates that Ampoma made sure he put food and water in a place that would be easily accessible to the mother anytime she was ready to eat. He always came to the house during break time to ensure that the mother was okay before he finally left from school.

The assemblyman attributed the death of Ampoma to negligence and ignorance.

According to him, people who had been using the road in that area knew that the cable was hanging, but did not report it to any authority, so the right thing was done.

“After the incident happened, I heard some of the folks in the community say they saw the hanging cable but did not know it was live cable,” he added.

He said he has informed the Electricity Company of Ghana to come into the community to educate citizens on how to use electricity so that this unfortunate event does not happen again.