Irish Independent
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A woman died from a heart attack after the ambulance crew got lost and was delayed trying to get into the wrong house in another estate.
It took the ambulance 22 minutes to arrive, although the woman was in a house just a few minutes from the ambulance station, the inquest into her death heard yesterday.
Although the ambulance crew responded within three minutes of the call, they went to another housing estate with the same name and spent crucial minutes trying to get into the wrong house.
Afterwards, her daughter said she had lived in the estate for six years and “if I ring a Chinese takeaway they know where we are”.
Coroner Ronan Maguire, at Drogheda Coroner’s Court, heard that mother-of-three Mary-Judd Morrish (60) was staying with her daughter Michelle at 10 Sycamore Close, which is part of Termon Abbey, an estate of 800 houses in Drogheda.
It is not listed in the directory on the satellite navigation system used by the ambulance service, although another much smaller estate called the Sycamores in the Greenhills area of Drogheda is and it was there the crew inadvertently went to.
Pathologist John Ryan found Mrs Morrish had coronary heart disease and suffered a heart attack just as the ambulance crew arrived.
They began CPR and took her to the Lourdes Hospital where she was resuscitated. But she suffered severe brain damage and later died. She did not get to hospital until 47 minutes after the ambulance was called.
The inquest heard that Mrs Morrish was staying with her daughter, who was recovering from an operation on her leg. She felt unwell and was short of breath and on March 19 was given an inhaler by a GP.
However, at about 12.45am on March 22 she began to feel unwell again and asked Michelle to ring an ambulance. At 12.55am, they rang ambulance control in Navan, gave their address and waited for an ambulance to arrive from the station which is located at the Cottage Hospital in Drogheda, a three-minute drive from their home.
“At eight minutes past one, I rang again because she was deteriorating rapidly and was told they were on the way and had already gone to the wrong address,” Michelle said after the inquest.
The crew had left base at 12.58am and had gone to an unoccupied house at 10 the Sycamores. Mr Maguire said they spent seven to eight minutes outside the wrong address trying to get in, after presuming the person inside had collapsed. When the crew had checked 10 Sycamore Close on their satellite navigation system, it had not shown up.
There was no sign in Termon Abbey indicating which row of houses was Sycamore Close, and Michelle and her husband ran up the street trying to flag down the ambulance when it arrived into the estate. It arrived at the house at 1.17am - a full 22 minutes after the first call was made.
“All these delays added to the problem and delayed Mrs Morrish getting treatment. However, I cannot find that the delay caused her death,” the coroner said.
He said Termon Abbey did not exist on the latest updated satellite navigation system. “This is inherently dangerous for the ambulance service and is a cause of concern, not just for me but for the residents of Termon Abbey,” he said.
Mr Maguire returned a narrative verdict which simply reads: “The ambulance was called at 00.55am and it went to an incorrect address and did not arrive until 1.17am”.
Dr Ryan said it appeared Mrs Morrish had deteriorated “rapidly” in the 20 minutes before the ambulance arrived. The safest place to have a heart attack was in hospital as irreparable brain damage started within four minutes if CPR was not begun, he said.
Mr Maguire is to write to the HSE and ask them to update their system.
Afterwards, Michelle said: “My mother would have had a chance if the ambulance arrived in reasonable time. Instead, she was denied treatment and that wait was the worst 20 minutes of my life.”