Friends raise funds for family of heroic U.D. fire victim
UPPER DARBY >> A township man who died Saturday in an accidental fire has been identified as 42-year-old Benjamin York Ahorklui, according to the Delaware County Medical Examiner’s Office and Upper Darby Fire Chief Gary McAfee.
Ahorklui was pronounced dead at the scene in the 6900 block of Aberdeen Road shortly after 2:15 p.m. Saturday. Following a complete autopsy, both the cause and manner of his death are pending, the official “Findings of the Medical Examiner” document states.
No foul play is suspected at this time, a spokesman for the office said late Thursday. The spokesman noted the medical examiner had only received an extensive final fire report Thursday and he had not yet read it.
McAfee said Thursday that the two-alarm blaze was ruled accidental. He said the fire, which was reported at 1:46 p.m. on Jan. 5, originated on the ground level of the row home, outside a utility room in the basement.
While the “ignition source” of the fire is undetermined, McAfee said Ahorklui and a friend were handling a fuel tank that appeared to have been removed from a Range Rover parked in the driveway.
“We know two heating source were in close proximity to the fuel tank they were working with,” McAfee said.
“It’s a tragic accident,” McAfee said of the flash fire.
While the friend ran through the garage outside to safety, he said it appears Ahorklui ran toward the entrance of the house where his wife was inside when he was overcome.
According to a GoFundMe account established to help with costs to return the victim’s body to his native Ghana for burial, “In his attempt to escape through the back door to the main house to get his wife who was at the time watching TV in the living room out of danger, he fell and the fire caught up with him as his body was found on the staircase leading to the living room.”
The distraught wife ultimately made her way out of the house. At least 10 others from nearby residences were displaced as a result of the fire, but there were no other injuries reported.
McAfee described damages to the row house where the fire originated as extensive. He also indicated that properties on either side sustained smoke damages.
In noting that the row house did not have any smoke alarms, McAfee reminded residents of the important of having working smoke alarms.
“I am saddened by the recent fire in Upper Darby that resulted in the loss of a member of our community. A simple technology may have prevented this tragedy,” he wrote in a Letter to the Editor published in Friday’s Daily Times and online at delcotimes.com.
Ahorklui was planning to return to Ghana with his wife, a move he had long desired to make, according to the GoFundMe narrative.
“Meanwhile, it is the fervent wish of his mother to have her son’s remains returned home for burial,” the narrative reads.