Photo: GoFundMe
A 26-year-old man died just days before the birth of his first child after he ventured out into blizzard conditions for supplies.
Despite the vicious weather conditions, which brought about 52 inches of snow fall across Buffalo over four days, according toThe New York Times, Sharifu felt compelled to help.
“Anytime you call up Abdul, he was ready to go,” his uncle, Enock Rushikana, told WGRZ of his nephew’s kindness. “He was ready to leave his duty to help.”
Rushikana said Sharifu told his wife Gloria that he would wait until the storm calmed before going outside.
He eventually left the house around noon on Saturday and was found lying in the snow six blocks from home hours later.
“We got him in the car. I took off my coat, took off my hoodie,” Savannah Jordan, who spotted Sharifu in the street, told WGRZ. “Tried to wrap him up as much as I could. He was breathing really shallow. He still had a pulse.”
Sharifu was declared dead after being taken to a local hospital.
“I can’t believe he left me,” 28-year-old Ally Sharifu, a cousin, told theWashington Post.
“My cousin was too good of a man. When you called him to help you, he would help,” Ally toldCNN. “That’s why he went outside to get the milk because he wouldn’t care what the outside looks like, he will try to come and help you.”
During a press conference, authorities said Abdul had gone out to get food for his wife, but Ally maintained he left to retrieve food for another family.
AGoFundMe campaignto cover the cost of Abdul’s funeral had raised over $53,000 as of Friday afternoon. A description on the page says Gloria is pregnant and expecting to give birth “this week.”
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According to CNN, Abdul moved to the U.S. from Congo in 2017 after spending about five years in a refugee camp in Burundi.
Rushikana said Abdul’s parents died in Congo’s 2002 civil war.
“He was raised as an orphan, so he had this dream to go back and help those kids who lost their parents in the civil war,” he said of Abdul. “He was an angel in our community. We nicknamed him ‘911,’ because whoever called him, he was ready to help.”
source: people.com
