Girl, 16, dies in hit and run after 21-minute wait for an ambulance
Police have to give first aid by light of a mobile phone
‘Screaming and shaking’
AN ambulance took 21 minutes to arrive at the scene of a hit-and-run crash which left a 16-year-old girl dead and six other teenagers injured.
The youngsters were mown down by an Audi convertible as they walked along a street early yesterday after attending a birthday party.
The driver is said to have fled, leaving the traumatised teenagers – including the dying schoolgirl – ‘covered in blood’ and sprawled across a grassy bank.
But despite being called to the scene in Croydon, South London, at 1.25am, it was at least 21 minutes before a single paramedic reached the scene.
Instead police were left to perform CPR on the girl with the light from a neighbour’s mobile phone.
Officers also tended to the other six – three of whom were seriously hurt – until a first response car arrived with a lone paramedic at 1.46am.
A life-threatening call should be responded to within eight minutes.
Last night the London Ambulance Service apologised, saying the nearest available resource was dispatched within two minutes.
The incident comes as the crisishit service faces an unprecedented demand which, combined with a shortage of paramedics, has seen waiting times soar for even the most serious emergencies.
The Daily Mail has previously revealed how the service has had to offer recruits hefty bonuses to fill vacancies as nearly 2,600 critically ill patients wait for more than the eight-minute target each day.
An LAS spokesman said: ‘We were called at 1.25am … to reports of a road traffic collision involving a car and pedestrians.
‘The nearest available resource was dispatched within two minutes and arrived on scene within 21 minutes, and we’re sorry for this delay.’
A number of other resources followed, including six ambulances and London’s Air Ambulance advanced trauma team, which arrived in a car.
Despite attempts to save her, the young girl was pronounced dead at the scene while the others, a mixture of boys and girls, were taken to hospital. The sister of one of the injured girls used Twitter to criticise the response time, saying: ‘One of her friends died as she was in between two cars. Ambulance took too long to come.’
Police said the incident is not thought to be deliberate or terrorrelated as the driver, who had made off on foot, was believed to have been travelling at speed when he lost control on the road.
A man in his 30s was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving yesterday afternoon after handing himself in.
Residents said they heard ‘horri- fied screams’ and a loud screech before a ‘horrific bang’. Sam Hussein described how he had tried to help after being woken by the sounds of people calling for help.
The father said he had checked the fatally injured girl, who friends called Nicole, for a pulse and later held his phone to give officers performing CPR on her some light.
He said: ‘I saw a girl lying face down with her hair covering her head... I put my left hand by her neck to see if there was a pulse and there was no pulse… as soon as we turned her over the police arrived.
‘I was with the police doing the CPR. The police were doing it and I was holding my phone for light.
‘Her friends were shouting “It’s Nicole, it’s Nicole”... a lot of them were screaming and shaking, cry- ing and shouting.’ Mr Hussein said it looked like the Audi had hit two parked vehicles before careering up a bank.
Residents said they have complained to the local council for some time about boy racers using the area as a race track.
In an earlier appeal directly to the driver to hand himself in, the police said there was evidence to suggest he himself had suffered a head injury during the collision.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘At this early stage it is believed the car was travelling at speed before it lost control at a corner and collided with the pedestrians.
‘At this time there is nothing to suggest the car was driven deliberately at the group.’