‘Oldest man in the world’ dies... at the age of 146!
A HEAVY smoker – whose documents appear to make him the oldest person to have ever lived – has died at 146, his family have revealed.
Indonesian Sodimedjo, who was also known as Mbah Ghoto or ‘Grandpa Ghoto’, was born in December 1870, according to his papers.
However, there is some question over the reliability of this information as Indonesia only started recording births in 1900.
But officials in Indonesia say that his claims were valid, based on interviews and documents he had provided. Mr Ghoto was taken to hospital on April 12 because of his ailing health but insisted on returning home to his village in Central Java, six days later.
‘Since he came back from the hospital, he only ate spoonfuls of porridge and drank very little,’ his grandson Suyanto told the BBC. ‘It only lasted a couple of days. From that moment on to his death, he refused to eat and drink.’
A lifelong heavy smoker, he is said to have outlived four wives, all of his children as well as ten siblings.
When previously asked about the key to his longevity, he said last year that patience was key and that he had enjoyed a long life because he had people who loved him that looked after him.
His remarkable life experiences made him a great story-teller in the village, with wars against Japan and Dutch colonisers making him a hero in his village.
Scientists are likely to question whether his claim could be possible with a study conducted last year claiming that the natural limit to human life is no more than 125 years. Researchers led by Jan Vijg of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, concluded that there was an age limit beyond which humans just cannot pass naturally.
Mr Ghoto was buried yesterday morning in a local cemetery plot he bought several years ago.
‘He didn’t ask much. Before he died, he just wanted us, his family, to let him go,’ his grandson said.
Officially, no human has lived longer than 122 – the age reached by Jeanne Calment at her death in 1997.
If independently verified, his age would make Grandpa Ghoto older than the Frenchwoman considered to be the longest-living human in recorded history.
It would mean he was born in the same year as the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and a year after the Suez Canal opened.
He will have lived through two world wars, resulting in the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, with seven British monarchs reigning in his lifetime.
Others also claim to have broken Miss Calment’s record, including Nigerian James Olofintuyi, who claimed to have made it to 171, and Dhaqabo Ebba from Ethiopia, who reckoned he was 163, although none of these was ever independently verified.
‘Patience was key to his longevity’