Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur, the wife of late Vice-President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, has denied claims that he was transported to the 37 Military Hospital in the bucket of a pickup when he collapsed at the Airforce Gym last year.

According to Mrs Amissah-Arthur, her late husband was rather put at the backseat of a pickup truck accompanied by a doctor and had been resuscitated after he had collapsed on the cross-trainer before he was transported to the hospital.

Narrating events leading to her husband’s death to David Ampofo on ‘Time With David’, the former Second Lady said: “On Friday, 29 June 2018, we got to the Airforce Gym at 4.30 am, he did his exercises… we were almost through, he went on the cross-trainer being the last exercise that he [was to] do and then he collapsed.

“One Dr Naa Tagoe, who is a member of the gym and works at the Ridge Hospital, rushed and resuscitated him, checked his pulse [and] everything and said we should go to 37 Military Hospital.”

Mrs Amissah-Arthur said a Senior Military Officer who was also at the gym advised that transporting the late Vice-President in his Mercedes-Benz was not advisable because of the limited space at the back seat and, therefore, offered to transport him in his pickup.

“We went in a Benz, so the doctor and this officer said if we put him at the back of the Benz, it’s so short that we have to cramp him, so: 'I have a pickup; a double-cabin pickup; let’s put him on the second seat of the double-cabin and let the doctor sit with him and I go with somebody else',” Mrs Amissah-Arthur narrated.

She stated that her husband, who had been resuscitated was put at the back seat of the pickup and not the bucket of that vehicle as was made public at the time by Okyenhene Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin II, the paramount chief of the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Area.

Mrs Amissah-Arthur said her husband was fine and the doctors confirmed his vitals and blood pressure were all normal.

She noted that while waiting outside in her car for her husband to be stabilised, she received news of his death and immediately requested for a post-mortem because “I was very surprised at what had happened”.

“My husband was a stickler for health… he does six-month check-ups, he didn’t have diabetes or pressure, so, I wanted to know… but really he wasn’t put in a bucket of a pickup,” she stressed.

Mr Amissah-Arthur died on 29 June 2018 at the 37 Military Hospital.

He was 67.