Crushed foot 'not a priority' for ambulance service (From Northwich Guardian)

Crushed foot 'not a priority' for North West Ambulance Trust

11:50am Saturday 6th June 2009 in News By Gina Bebbington

A MAN with a suspected crushed foot lay in agony for an hour and 20 minutes while he waited for an ambulance that never came.

The man was delivering drinks to Castle off-licence Simply Drinks, in Chester Road, when a cage full of two-litre drinks bottles tipped over and on to his foot.

This happened at noon on Thursday and the ambulance service was called immediately.

But at 1.20pm staff from the neighbouring newsagents cancelled the ambulance because the man’s colleagues had reached him from St Helens first.

Gwen Rogers, from the newsagents, said: “We heard this big bang and shot out of the shop.

“The poor man was in terrible pain sat on the pavement with his foot stretched out. We didn’t know what state his foot was in, it was swelling.

“The ambulance service said they had to prioritise and asked if he was still breathing but I think it’s terrible that if you want an ambulance you have to stop breathing.

“Eventually his colleagues from St Helens came over and took him to hospital themselves.”

A spokesman for P&H, the company that delivers to Simply Drinks, said the man had not broken any bones but was still off work.

“The cage hit his foot and scraped down it – it’s badly bruised and stiffened up. Luckily nothing was broken but he was in a bit of shock.”

In last week’s Guardian we reported on a pensioner suffering a stroke who had to wait almost an hour for an ambulance, despite a much-publicised campaign encouraging people to act fast if they suspect a stroke.

A spokesman for the North West Ambulance Trust said: “ The trust aims to respond to emergency calls in the shortest time possible and has a prioritisation system to ensure that resources are allocated to incidents with the greatest emergency need.

“Based on the information provided by the caller, the call taker established that the patient was conscious, breathing and alert, therefore it was classified as a non life threatening call.

“NWAS has a one hour target time to reach patients of this nature of call.

“Callers are always asked to call again if the patient’s condition deteriorates.

“Unfortunately, due to a high volume of emergency calls, there were no vehicles available in the vicinity when this call was received.

“An ambulance was on scene at 13.09 but was not required to convey the patient to hospital.”