A 35-year-old woman, Loretta Ewere, has been electrocuted at her fiance’s home on Ajoke Kazeem Street in Idimu area of Lagos. Her fiancé was fixing an electrical fault when the incident happened.
She was said to have been rushed to a private hospital within the area but was rejected before being confirmed dead at the Igando General Hospital.
The Punch reports that Ewere and her fiancé had scheduled their wedding for November 2016 and preparation was in top gear when tragedy struck.
A resident, who did not want to be identified, said the incident happened around 1pm on Saturday, adding that it created chaos in the neighbourhood.
He said, “The man had wanted to change his old cable TV decoder and antenna. When power was restored, he discovered that he didn’t have electricity in his house.
“He wanted to do it himself, but neighbours advised him to get the service of an electrician. He contacted an electrician who billed him N2,500. But he said the charge was too high. He decided to go and rent a wooden ladder from someone in the area.
“He mounted the ladder on the wall and called the lady from inside the room to assist him in holding the ladder. She held the ladder with one hand and held an iron pole beside the room with the other hand.
“While he was working, the wire fell and touched the pole she was holding and that was how she was electrocuted.”
The fiancé called for help from a next-door neighbour, whose wife reportedly rushed to the scene to pull out the victim with her bare hands. She was reportedly flung by the electric current.
An electrician was said to have been invited, who then disconnected the power.
“The woman fell down and hit her head against the concrete floor. People tried to resuscitate her by giving her milk; but she didn’t come round. A lot of time had been wasted. She was rushed to a private hospital in the area, but she was rejected.
“We took her to the general hospital, where she was confirmed dead. Her corpse was deposited in a mortuary,” another resident said.
Beautiful Ewere, an indigene of Ewuru, Delta State, worked in Union Diagnostics, a medical lab in Ikeja, while her fiancé worked with an insurance company.
When The Punch visited the lady’s family house on Ogidan Street, Idimu, they said the family was too distraught to talk about the incident.
However, a relative, who identified himself as Charles, blamed the incident on her fiancé ‘stinginess’.
He said that the couple had been living together for the past four years, adding that the two families had started preparation for their wedding.
He said, “They did their introduction four years ago and since then, they had been staying together. Their marriage was slated for November and the two families have bought clothes and sent invitation to people.
“Around 1pm of the day that she died, she called one of her friends that she would be going to shop for the wedding, not knowing that she would die that day.
“It was the man’s stinginess that killed her. If he had paid someone to fix the electrical fault, this would not have happened.”
Police said the couple were fixing cable antenna, not electrical wire, when the sad accident occurred.
