Injured walker lay on path for three hours

AN injured woman who suffered a dislocated knee after colliding with her dog in Gower lay on wet grass for more than three hours before being taken to hospital.

One onlooker said the casualty was in considerable discomfort and that the weather was poor.

“She was crying out in agony,” he said.

The Welsh Ambulance Service apologised, blaming a high number of call-outs at the time.

The woman, believed to be 50 and with her two sons at the time, suffered the injury to her left knee on the coast path at Rhossili just before 1.30pm on Monday.

She was finally taken to Morriston Hospital by a UK search-and-rescue helicopter from St Athan at 4.34pm. HM Coastguard was alerted to the incident at 1.33pm and immediately tasked the WAS and Rhossili coastguard rescue team, the latter of whom stabilised the patient.

Next on the scene were on-call firefighters from Reynoldston – but they needed paramedics to administer pain relief.

With no road or air ambulance apparently able to get there, and the call not a life-threatening code red, the casualty had to remain lying by the coast path until the helicopter was called out at 4.11pm.

Jeff Morris, Welsh Ambulance Service head of operations for the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg Health Board area, said: “We would like to apologise to this patient for the wait she experienced after her fall.

“The remote location, along with the need to send specialist resources to assist and the number of other calls we received meant we could not reach the patient as quickly as we would have liked.”