Ambulance apology to heart attack family
EMERGENCY service bosses have apologised after it took nearly 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the home of a man who suffered two heart attacks.
The parents of Paul Tyrall, 54, frantically dialled 999 after he woke up with severe breathing difficulties.
When they did arrive, paramedics had to perform CPR on Paul twice before they reached Fairfield Hospital as his heart had stopped - but were thankfully able to revive him.
North West Ambulance Service have since apologised for failing to make the pensioner’s call a top priority - but Paul’s dad Chris Tyrrall, 84, said he felt he was not taken seriously because of his age.
Chris, from Bamford, said Paul woke up fighting for breath after suffering an unknown illness which was later discovered to be an infection.
He claims he told the operator at the time of the call that his son was ‘just about’ breathing, which NWAS say should have been categorised by the call handler as the highest possible priority, but wasn’t.
Chris described his and his wife’s desperation when their son - who he says was healthy up until this incident - was having severe difficulty breathing.
He said: “My wife woke up at six and Paul couldn’t breathe or talk so we rang the ambulance.
“We were definitely thinking the worst.
“It was really traumatic - we were waiting 45 minutes and we felt really deeply desperate at the time.”
The retired salesman and company director, who lives on Clayfield Drive with Paul and wife Brenda, said he called initially at 6.24am then again around 20 minutes later as the ambulance had not yet arrived.
He said it eventually came at 7.05am.
Chris said: “Obviously, our son was very ill. The paramedics were brilliant - he had two cardiac arrests, without them he would have died.
“We saw the ambulance shaking and realised that they were doing CPR on him.”
After over three months in hospital, - including seven weeks in intensive care Paul - who works for the Co-op - is now recovering at home following the incident in April.
Chris feels his initial complaints were dismissed due to his age.
He said: “They were rude to me and I feel it’s because of my age.
“It was really a traumatic experience which had been heightened the rudeness of the staff. I think it’s ageistic.”
NWAS have since apologised to the pensioner after he complained about how long it took for paramedics to respond but say they were never made aware of the claims of ageism.