...and the one who wasn’t
Retired postman Roger Garrett (above right), 64, from Walthamstow, died of a heart attack on July 20 last year in a crowded A&e waiting room at Whipps Cross Hospital, London. His long-term partner Bill Caster, 65, told Good Health Roger’s story.
CHEST PAIN STARTS
ROGER and Bill return home after a long walk and Roger complains of a stitch in the middle of his chest.
It’s a heart attack starting, but he assumes it’s heartburn so takes a pill and lies down for a few hours.
Later he ‘feels better’, but the next morning he complains of a bad night. He takes more indigestion tablets, but they don’t help with the intermittent chest pain.
After a second bad night, Bill insists Roger call the GP at 8.30am to get a same-day appointment — but there are none, even though he tells the receptionist he’s had chest pains for two days.
An hour and a half later, Roger and Bill take the bus to hospital.
ARRIVES AT HOSPITAL
ROGER books in at the A&E reception, explaining he’s had chest pains for two days. The receptionist tells him to take a seat in the main waiting room, which is crowded.
Roger keeps getting up to walk around. Bill thinks he is frustrated it’s taking so long, but it could have been to ease the discomfort.
ONE HOUR 20 MINUTES LATER
ROGER is called into a cubicle by a triage nurse. He tells her he’s been having chest pains and breathlessness since the night before, but for some reason she does not put him on a fast-track as a suspected heart attack patient, though his age and symptoms point to this possibility.
Instead, she sends him to a smaller, but still crowded waiting room.
THREE HOURS 15 MINUTES LATER
AFTER two hours, no specialist has seen Roger, nor has he received any medication.
It’s 3pm, and suddenly alarms start blaring. Bill, who is in the main A&E waiting room, thinks it’s a fire. In fact, it’s the alarm calling the resuscitation team to Roger, who has collapsed.
Everyone leaves the smaller waiting room. Bill has no idea what’s happened. He thinks about going to ask, but decides to wait.
THREE HOURS 20 MINUTES LATER
THE resuscitation team are trying to get Roger’s heart started by manually pumping his chest and giving him artificial ventilation.
FOUR HOURS FIVE MINUTES LATER
A DOCTOR comes to the main waiting room and asks if anyone had accompanied Roger to the hospital. Bill is taken aside and told that Roger has collapsed and they have been working on him for the past 45 minutes.
They are going to give it three last tries, but don’t think Roger is going to make it.
Bill is asked if he would like to see him.
Roger is lying on a trolley with tubes everywhere and his eyes wide open.
‘He was already dead — that was clear,’ says Bill. ‘I was in such shock I couldn’t take it in.
‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They tried and failed to revive him once more in front of me and then I had to walk away. It was just too much.’
Bill calls their friends and asks them to come to the hospital.
FOUR HOURS 35 MINUTES LATER
BILL and his friends are taken to see Roger. ‘He was lying in repose and his eyes were closed,’ says Bill. ‘I reached over and touched his arm. We’d been together for 40 years.’
FIVE HOURS 50 MINUTES LATER
BILL leaves the hospital with a bag containing Roger’s belongings.
TWO MONTHS LATER
A SERIOUS case review finds a catalogue of blunders led to Roger’s death.
Despite the fact he had reported classic signs of a heart attack, he was not put under observation, no blood tests were taken, nor was he given an ECG to check his heart rhythm, which should be done for suspected heart attack victims as soon as they are admitted to A&E.
He wasn’t given any bloodthinning medication, which the guidelines say should be administered as soon as a diagnosis is made in hospital, and he did not have any scans.