The Delta passenger who collapsed at JFK Airport and died at Jamaica Hospital — after his medical treatment was delayed at least four minutes because cops’ secure access cards didn’t work — is a Pentecostal minister and father of five who had just returned from his dad’s funeral in Nigeria.
Adekunle Ogunseye, 48, died early Saturday morning at Jamaica Hospital soon after he was stricken inside the newly renovated terminal 4.
The victim had just returned from his native Nigeria, where he’d spent the last two weeks attending to the funeral of his father, David, 85, said family friend, Babjide Oluyemi, 48.
To add insult to injury, Oluyemi said that Ogunseye’s black backpack — containing a laptop computer and his Bible — might have been stolen after he collapsed.
Two teams of first responders were delayed in reaching the victim because their electronic ID cards couldn’t open secure doors at the terminal at different locations.
Emergency medical technicians with an ambulance that was equipped with basic life support capabilities were finally able to treat him, but the snafu delayed better trained FDNY paramedics — with advanced life support capabilities on their ambulance — from getting to him right away, wasting precious seconds.
Ogunseye was declared shortly after he arrived at Jamaica Hospital.
A spokesman for the city’s Medical Examiner said that the cause of death was pending, although Oluyemi said he’d been told that the preliminary cause of his friend’s passing was a pulmonary embolism.
Ogunseye had sickle cell anemia, said Oluyemi, but he insisted his friend was in fairly good health despite the illness.
“He stayed active,” said Oluyemi.
Ogunseye emigrated here four years ago after winning a “green card lottery.”
He lived with his family in Plainfield, N.J., and worked at a deli in Scotch Plains, N.J., Oluyemi said.
The victim dreamed of building a church so he could resume his past profession as a Pentecostal minister.
He added that the victim’s family was “upset” and “outraged” at what occurred.
“There’s no doubt they’re upset. The family thinks he could have been saved,” Oluyemi said.
He said the victim’s wife, Rose, is “right now, just sad and disappointed.”
The dead man’s brother, Adedayo, 45, who works as a management consultant and lives in England, was “outraged,” over the delay, Oluyemi added.
“He’s angry that much more wasn’t done to save his brother,” said Oluyemi.
In late June, just two days before he flew from JFK Airport to Ibadan, the Nigerian city where he was raised for his father’s funeral, Ogunseye posed with his wife, Rose, and their three sons and two daughters, ages three to 11, in the parking lot of a shopping center.
The kids shown include, from left to right, Marvelous (son); Moriah (daughter); Mighty (son, the smallest child); Marth (daughter) and Manna (son).
The family is planning to hold a Sunday wake and service between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Judkings Colonial Funeral Home, 428 West 4th Street, Plainview, N.J.