Daily Post
CARDIFF — A paramedic let a patient’s son drive a 999 ambulance back to hospital.
Craig Susdorf left crucial oxygen equipment, a defibrillator and an IV in his ambulance after arriving at an emergency in Aberystwyth. Failure to take what is known as a “response bag” directly to the scene meant vital minutes were wasted.
It meant potentially life-saving treatment was delayed until the patient was carried to the ambulance outside his home.
The paramedic then only used the defibrillator, which jolts the heart back to life with an electric shock, once. He also failed to gain access for an IV so that drugs could be given to the patient, according to the record he later completed.
Details of the incident were outlined to a panel of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) Competence Committee. The panel heard that Mr Susdorf and an ambulance technician named only as JW then allowed the son of a patient suffering from a cardiac arrest to drive the ambulance carrying his father to Ysbyty Bronglais in Aberystwyth.
Mr Susdorf did not attend the hearing in Cardiff. It was on an emergency call-out to a home in Aberystwyth in September 2011 that the incident happened.
The hearing heard from two witnesses; an educator at the Welsh Ambulance Trust identified only as DC, who was appointed to investigate, and a senior nurse at Bronglais A&E named as CW.
When the ambulance arrived at the hospital CW told the hearing that Mr Susdorf and the technician were in the back and that she saw the patient’s son “jump out of the driver’s seat”.
DC said that Mr Susdorf indicated that it was the technician who told the patient’s son to drive. Mr Susdorf went on to defend not taking a response bag to the patient on the grounds that “he took a decision to get the patient to the equipment instead of dragging everything out of the vehicle.”
He avoided being struck-off for his “serious” misconduct because the incident was a “one-off” and that there were no previous findings against him.
Panel chair Clare Reggiori said: “The panel has found that, although the failings occurred during a single incident, the registrant’s actions were sufficiently serious as to amount to misconduct.”
His actions contravened both Trust policy and Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison Committee.
Paul Hughes from Welsh Ambulance Service said it had fully cooperated with the HCPC: “The paramedic was dismissed from his post last year and no longer works for the Welsh Ambulance Service.”