- Trudy Glenister, 38, lost 4 litres of blood in wait to reach Southend Hospital
- Called 999 after suffering severe stomach pains 5 weeks into pregnancy
- Trainee ambulance staff refused to leave for 40 minutes, did not use sirens
- She had cardiac arrest after ‘ectopic pregnancy’, died on arrival at hospital
- Sister blasted ’999 lottery’, half East Ambulance Service crewed by trainees
14:19 EST, 14 April 2014
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16:09 EST, 14 April 2014
Tragic: Trudy Glenister lost four litres of blood on her way to Southend Hospital and died shortly after arriving
A pregnant woman bled to death after junior paramedics waited 40 minutes to take her to hospital, it has emerged.
Trudy Glenister, 38, warned family she thought she was ‘losing the baby’ after she started vomiting and suffering from severe abdominal pains in April 2011.
But trainee ambulance staff refused to leave for Southend Hospital for almost an hour – and would not use the emergency sirens, an inquest has heard.
Instead they opted to ‘observe’ Mrs Glenister for 40 minutes before deciding to take her to hospital.
Paramedics also initially dismissed the possibility of her suffering an ectopic pregnancy – where the foetus grows in the fallopian tube rather than the womb – and failed to realise there was an internal bleed.
Mrs Glenister, who was five weeks pregnant with her second child, went into cardiac arrest after suffering internal bleeding caused by the ectopic pregnancy. She died moments after arriving at hospital.
In a damning narrative verdict, Coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray slammed the East of England Ambulance Service for the ‘disturbing’ failings.
Failings listed included student paramedics failed to fully to appreciate an acute emergency and did not alert the hospital.
She
blasted the ‘unacceptable delay’ transferring Mrs Glenister, who lost four litres of blood in the time it took to reach the hospital. She added that the blue lights and sirens should have been used on the way.
Mrs Beasley-Murray told Chelmsford Coroner’s Court: ‘There were serious failings in the care provided to Mrs Glenister by the the East of England Ambulance Service.
‘Much in this case has been troubling.
‘Firstly, the apparent lack of training on the subject of ectopic pregancy.
‘The court was referred to two paragraphs in training manuals – that clearly had not been sufficient training.
‘The court is also troubled by the use of student paramedics on emergency calls like this one.
‘This has been a most sad case.
‘The evidence has been most disturbing and harrowing to hear.’
The 999 lottery: It emerged half the East of England Ambulance Service was staffed by trainees that night
Grieving sister Paula Chapman has slammed the ‘lottery of dialling 999?, telling the court the condition was ‘preventable’.
Speaking after an inquest at Chelmsford
Coroners’ Court today her sister Mrs Chapman, 37, said: ‘People need to
know the lottery of dialling 999.
HOW AN ECTOPIC PREGNANCY BECOMES A MEDICAL EMERGENCY
An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb, in a fallopian tube.
In this state, the egg will not develop into a baby and could have devastating consequences for the mother’s health.
With few noticeable symptoms, it is common for the condition to go unnoticed until detected by a routine test.
If it is not detected, the mother will likely suffer from heavy bleeding, severe abdominal pain, and dizziness at any point between five and 14 weeks of pregnancy.
If the egg grows and ruptures the fallopian tube, she will experience sudden and severe pain, feeling faint or dizzy, vomiting, diarrhoea, and shoulder pain.
This is a medical emergency.
It is a signal that the mother is suffering life-threatening internal bleeding.
‘Half the ambulances won’t have a trained paramedic on them.
‘If the ambulance service think this is acceptable then they need to tell people.
‘My sister had a serious but preventable condition – she just needed urgent surgery.
‘We’re heartbroken but pleased the coroner found significant failings at the ambulance trust.’
Shocking evidence from ambulance bosses revealed half the ambulances on call on the night of Mrs Glenister’s death were crewed entirely by trainee paramedics.
Ambulance trainee Mark Nelmes told the court he and a student colleague had arrived at the home in Great Wakering, Essex, at 7.29pm on April 11, 2011, and began making observations at 7.35pm.
Observations continued until 8.09pm before they drove to the hospital without emergency lights and sirens, claiming he feared using them might ‘increase the patient’s anxiety’.
Following the 15-minute journey, the crew queued up behind other ambulances, unaware of the medical emergency at hand.
Mrs
Glenister, who worked as a bank manager, was declared dead shortly
after arrival at Southend Hospital at 9.58pm the same evening.
Mr Nelmes admitted that he had only been
training for a year and his knowledge of ectopic pregnancies was
restricted to two brief paragraphs in training manuals.
The paramedics failed to alert Southend Hospital of the emergency and waited in a ‘not urgent’ queue
He conceded that he did not have the same level of knowledge as a paramedic but claimed he had followed his training by carrying out two sets of observations before taking the patient to hospital.
A post-mortem revealed Mrs Glenister had lost four litres of blood in her abdominal area after suffering a rupture of the fallopian tubes in what pathologist Dr Ian Caulder described as an ‘acute medical surgical emergency’.
A number of Mrs Glenister’s family, including widower Nigel Glenister, attended the second and concluding day of the inquest today.
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The comments below have been moderated in advance.
eiffel2,
paris,
8 hours ago
A qualified person should always be with a trainee – so what excuse is there for this ??
London Girl,
Highgate,
8 hours ago
Trainees should ALWAYS be paired with fully qualified paramedics, always!
maias,
kuching,
8 hours ago
Presumably the ‘observation period’ is a policy decision to avoid taking a patient to hospital. Saving money not lives seems to be the British Government’s credo – as witnessed from the Blair years when soldiers were not provided with armoured land rovers or protective equipment, and the last government and this one with the NHS more interested in the bottom line, and protecting their bonuses and pesnion pots, than in patient welfare.
Sarainthecity,
London,
9 hours ago
Here’s some good advice I received from a doctor about paramedics. The quicker the paramedic gets their patients to hospital, the better the paramedic. Their driving skills are more important than their ability to treat the patient. My baby son needed an ambulance recently and they sat around chatting and trying to treat him for ages. I insisted they stop and get him to hospital asap.
Bored of Sychophancy,
North, United Kingdom,
9 hours ago
What I don’t understand is why “trainees†are out on their own. In any profession one of the best ways to learn is alongside a “seasoned†expert. Why aren’t they mixed in with the established, rather then sent out to blunder along without the support of experience? And I think “blunder†is an understatement in this case…
bally74,
derby uk,
9 hours ago
Unfortunately not a surprise to hear. Ambulance service suffering severe budget costs hence 2 trainees rather than 1 trained 1 training paramedic.
Tragic story, but if services are depleted and under funded then these story’s will become more common
Sam,
UK, United Kingdom,
9 hours ago
And for every ambulance service failure article printed, 100 ambulance service thank-you letters go unprinted… People aren’t interested in the amazing work ‘ambulance drivers’ do, they just care about when it all goes pete tong/wrong.
SM,
West Midlands,
9 hours ago
That’s disgusting, they should be ashamed of themselves! Their basic obs would’ve told them she was bleeding.
My heart goes out to those left behind x
emma,
London UK,
10 hours ago
When I had an an ectopic they kept me in hospital even though I felt perfectly fine….it can be very dangerous I don’t know why these paramedics didn’t feel it was an emergency
Apollomum,
Birmingham, United Kingdom,
10 hours ago
It’s called taking a history of the presenting complaint, you have to have something to tell the nursing team when you hand over, if it’s a taxi you want you’re calling the wrong number!!
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