“My son is dying.”Elizabeth Solomon uttered the chilling words in a phone call and then hung up. Minutes later, her husband discovered her body and that of her 5-year-old son Emmanuel Akrong in their backyard pool in Brampton.“I tried to help my son,” a distraught Emmanuel Akrong Sr. told the Star in a telephone interview on Sunday afternoon, the day after the shocking double tragedy.He said he also tried to lift his wife out of the water, but couldn’t manage it on his own. Next-door-neighbour Ozzy Anjum, 28, says he heard Akrong yelling that he needed help for his wife and son at his pool.Anjum rushed to help, running through the front door and through to the pool area. There he saw the youngster lying on the deck, unresponsive. Solomon, 38, was still in the water, face down. He tried unsuccessfully to do CPR on the boy, then jumped into the pool with another neighbour to get Solomon.“We dragged her out and flipped her on the deck. There was dirt in her eyes and mouth,” Anjum recalls. Then the paramedics and police jumped in.Solomon was taken to hospital, where she died early Sunday morning. Her son was pronounced dead on arrival. A postmortem has been scheduled.Anjum, an Air Canada employee at Pearson airport, says he was so shaken by the tragedy he had to take the day off work Sunday.“It’s very sad news. What he (Akrong Sr.) must be going through, this must be so hard on him,” he said. “It’s a long weekend and everyone should be with family. This is very upsetting.”Her son was pronounced dead on arrival in hospital. On Sunday, the Star spoke with neighbours and the pastor of the Pentecostal church where Solomon worshipped with her husband. The Star also spoke briefly with Akrong to piece together how the tragedy unfolded.Pastor John Danquah spoke by telephone from his home, where grief-stricken Akrong, a director at Tangerine Bank, is staying for the time being. Police have sealed o ...
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