Sheffield pensioner waited 3 hours for an ambulance after breaking her pelvis
- Freda Stancer, from Sheffield, fell over in her garden while feeding the birds
- She was forced to lay on wet ground while an ambulance was called 5 times
- Her neighbours desperately attempted to keep her warm with portable heaters
- A first-aid responded even labelled the wait ‘a joke’ and rang 999 himself
Stephen Matthews For Mailonline
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Freda Stancer, 88, was forced to lay on wet ground with a fractured pelvis for nearly three hours while waiting for an ambulance
A pensioner who fractured her pelvis after falling over had to wait nearly three hours for an ambulance.
Freda Stancer, 88, from Sheffield, tumbled in her garden after going outside to feed the birds.
She was forced to lay on wet ground in temperatures close to freezing while waiting for medical attention.
Her neighbours desperately attempted to keep her warm with a hair dryer, portable heaters and an array of blankets.
They rang 999 five times, but no help appeared until nearly three hours after she fell – with a first-aid responder lamenting the wait.
Her son, Paul, claims his mother is lucky to be alive following her ordeal.
Mr Stancer, who lives in London, said: ‘l was absolutely horrified to hear how long she had to wait in the freezing cold. You wouldn’t treat an animal like that.
‘If the ambulance service doesn’t see that as a priority I don’t know what is.
‘There would have had to be a lot of people with missing limbs wandering around town for that not to qualify as a priority.
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‘Thankfully she’s recovering now in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital but I think she would have died of hypothermia were it not for her neighbours’ actions.’
It is believed that Ms Stancer had slipped over in her garden after going outside to feed the birds at 2.30pm on December 29.
Her neighbours, Sue and George Allott, didn’t notice her stranded in her back garden until 3.25pm – they immediately rang an ambulance.
Her son, Paul, who lives in London, claims his mother is lucky to be alive following her ordeal
Her neighbours desperately attempted to keep her warm with a hair dryer, portable heaters and an array of blankets
A first-aid responded arrived in his own car at approximately 4.40pm, but wasn’t qualified to administer pain relief or move Ms Stancer.
Mrs Allott claims that when he heard how long she’d been lying on the ground for he labelled it ‘a joke’.
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
2.30pm – Ms Stancer fell over in her garden after going outside to feed the birds
3.25pm – Neighbours George and Sue Allott noticed her on the ground and rang an ambulance
4.40pm – First-aid responder arrives and rings 999 himself
5.20pm – Ambulance finally turns up before taking Ms Stancer to hospital
He is then reported to have dialled 999 himself – but it wasn’t until 5.20pm that an ambulance finally was able to take her to hospital.
‘I know the NHS is short of resources but we would like to know why it took so long for anyone to arrive,’ says Mrs Allott.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service has since apologised to Ms Stancer’s family for the delay.
Jackie Cole, locality director for emergency operations in South Yorkshire, said: ‘We would like to sincerely apologise for the delay in responding to Freda Stancer following her fall on Thursday, December 29.
‘The patient’s family have been in touch with the trust and we are liaising with them directly to discuss their concerns.
‘The call came in during a period of very high demand and we were doing our best to respond as quickly as possible to all patients who needed our assistance.
‘We would like to reassure members of the public that our main priority continues to be providing a safe, responsive and high quality service to the people of Yorkshire.’
Her neighbour, Sue Allott, who helped keep her warm, said: ‘I know the NHS is short of resources but we would like to know why it took so long for anyone to arrive’ (stock)
This comes after a Daily Mail investigation in October revealed that ambulances are late to a third of emergencies.
In the year to August, more than 1.1million critically ill patients were left waiting for an ambulance longer than the target of eight minutes.
They included victims of cardiac arrests, strokes and road traffic accidents. Some had to wait for nearly two hours.
The NHS figures – the worst on record – were blamed on migration, the failure of GP services and a shortage of paramedics.
To make matters worse, ambulances are having to queue outside busy AE units and so cannot respond to other 999 calls.
Separate figures also showed that almost 77,000 ambulances waited at least an hour outside casualty departments last year – twice as many as two years ago.
STUDENT’S FATAL 5-HOUR WAIT
Lisa Day died after suffering a heart attack and waiting almost five hours for an ambulance.
An inquest earlier this year heard the 27-year-old student would have survived had paramedics arrived sooner.
She suffered from type one diabetes and had been staying with a friend last September when she suddenly began vomiting blood.
Her friend dialled 111 and was put through to the London Ambulance Service – and was promised a response within 30 minutes.
But the service was experiencing unprecedented demand with 300 new calls every hour.
While she was waiting, Miss Day’s condition worsened and she suffered a cardiac arrest. Paramedics found her unconscious.
She died five days later at the Royal Free Hospital, north London, of a lack of oxygen to the brain – a complication of her diabetes.
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