His West African colleagues call him ‘The Boss of the Pancreas’ simply because of his love for very challenging health cases.
The pancreas is the large gland of the body that is near the stomach which is a complicated area to work on but Sierra Leone’s only Government Pathologist, Dr. Simeone Owizz Koroma handles it with much solicitude.
Dr. Koroma saw and handled 497 of the 499 casualties officially recorded from the combined mudslide and flood disaster on the Sugar Loaf Mountain in Free Town, the capital of Sierra Leone, displacing about 3000 persons while some 600 others are still unaccounted for.
Being the only trained pathologist in Sierra Leone, the renowned disease expert is an acclaimed national hero status for the swift manner with which he attended to the bodies sent the Connaught Hospital, where all the bodies pulled from the mud were taken for pre-burial examination.
The crew from The Multimedia Group, including host of the Super Morning Show on Joy FM, went to Free Town to fish out the pathologist from his hideout in the cold room of dead bodies.
Many are amazed at his reserved yet resolute composure responding to the call when disaster struck his beloved country, Sierra Leone, Monday morning.
It is the biggest single disaster to have hit the nation that has suffered over a decade of war and was just returning to normalcy after it was plagued with the deadly Ebola virus in 2014.
“You have to be stubborn to face things…They say I’m one of the coolest bastards in the business. That’s what the forensic scientists say,” Dr. Koroma said in a hearty chat with Kojo Yankson broadcast on the Super Morning Show Friday, August 25, 2017.
A believer of the Christian faith, Dr. Koroma said he does not move a step away from the Holy Scriptures. He believes his country may be facing the wrath of nature because they have transgressed.
“Why did this happen? Why all these calamities? Have we disobeyed the Almighty God? I believe so…” he said.
After some of these questions have been answered within the next couple of weeks to months, life will return to normal, the Government Chief Pathologist Manager at the Connaught Hospital, expressed in confidence.
“We’ll be recovering, excavating, extraction, collection and the job will continue. That’s how life is”, the pathologist who also trained as a police officer said.