A fatal gesture of assistance

LENDING a helping hand proved fatal for a Limassol resident when he fell trying to assist a relative who had got locked out of her home.

Nicos Andreaou Toumaniou, 31, was buried in Eptagonia, Limassol yesterday after succumbing to his injuries on Sunday.

His kidneys were yesterday transplanted to two patients.

Toumaniou’s father told reporters that doctors had told the family that his son would die if he was taken off life-support machines. “As humanists, we, my wife and family, offered that his organs be used to help save our fellow man.”

Unfortunately, Toumaniou’s other organs were not suitable for transplant after being damaged in the fall.

The accident happened on Friday afternoon when the Toumaniou’s wife’s cousin realised she had locked her house keys into her first floor home next door.

The father of two offered to climb onto her balcony and open her front door, and put a ladder onto the side of the house. As he was climbing, he fell from the ladder, knocking his head as he hit the ground.

He was rushed to Limassol general hospital where serious cranial damage was diagnosed. Toumaniou was then taken by ambulance to Nicosia general hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on Sunday.

He was an employee of the Agios Tychonas Improvement Board and left behind a wife and two daughters aged two and four.

His family yesterday asked those attending the funeral to donate money to Toumaniou’s wife and children instead of buying wreaths and flowers for his grave.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.