Gardener with broken back’s 2-hour wait for an ambulance
A MOTHER was forced to lie in her garden with a broken back for two hours as she waited for an ambulance.
Marion Nash, 61, was left in agony with a potentially lifechanging injury after she fell from a ladder while gardening.
Unable to move, she called daughters Vicky, 30, and Mandy, 37, who dashed round to their mother and called an ambulance at 2.50pm.
They said the 999 call handlers told them not to move Mrs Nash, a retired shoe shop worker from Fleetwood, Lancashire, until help arrived.
So they did all they could to comfort their mother, covering her in a blanket and placing cushions under her head.
But Mrs Nash, who suffers from osteoporosis, was ‘shaking uncontrollably with shock’ and ‘as white as a ghost’ because of the freezing temperatures.
It was two hours before the ambulance arrived to take her to Blackpool Victoria Hospital. There, Mrs Nash was given two paracetamols and had to wait an extra five and a half hours before being seen by a doctor who diagnosed her injury just after midnight. An X-ray revealed she had fractured her spine. Mrs Nash, who has not been able to walk since the fall, remains in hospital while doctors determine the extent of her injury.
Speaking from her hospital bed, she said: ‘The staff are wonderful. They can’t do enough for all the patients.
‘I’m unhappy I was left so long but it’s not their fault. There are not enough ambulances. It’s just a sorry situation.’
Describing the moment she found her stricken mother last Monday, Mandy said: ‘She was totally in shock and shaking uncontrollably.
‘She is 61 and has osteoporosis, she was in agony and I was thinking, “is this the way Mum is going to die?” We were left with deciding, do we leave Mum out in the cold where she could get hypothermia, or do you move her and potentially paralyse her? That’s the position they put us in when the ambulance didn’t arrive and it shouldn’t come to that.’
Mandy, a shopkeeper, criticised the Government over NHS cuts and said the public needed to ‘shame the powers that be’ into improving the service. She said: ‘We cannot complain that much because we have a system that’s free and it’s available 24/7 for everyone to use, but it’s failing. We can’t say it’s the doctors’ fault or the nurses’ fault. You could hear them saying, “I haven’t had a break in ten hours”. We’re highlighting the problems and faults as a whole.
‘My mum’s injuries were not life-threatening but what happened to her could have been life-changing.
‘It’s getting to a point where it has to change. We have to move with the times. People are constantly changing and expectations are changing.
‘We have to shame the powers that be into doing something.’
A spokesman for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘We are unable to discuss individual patients, but are happy to talk through any concerns patients may have.
‘We are sorry for any extended waiting times. As with all emergency departments nationally, we are experiencing pressures on our service and our primary concern is always the safety of our patients.’
‘It’s just a sorry situation’