By Luke Traynor
The Daily Mirror
LIVERPOOL, England — Paramedics took an hour to reach an elderly stroke victim because they were apparently forced to take a tea break.
The ambulance driver is said to have seen the 999 call to stricken 82-year-old Pauline Brown pop up. But he and his colleague were allegedly stopped from going straight away when a boss told them to take their statutory 20-minute break.
Now Pauline’s furious family fear she is going to have brain damage and paralysis down her right side.
Son Carl, 47, blasted: “The driver said they have to do what the people t i operating the call centre in Preston tell them. I said couldn’t he have his cup of tea in the hospital after they’d taken my mum, but he said it was more than his job was worth.
“If I can press charges, I will do.
This woman on the phone was talking off a script. I was shouting, ‘My mum is dying, where’s the ambuscreen.
lance?’, but she didn’t care. It’s vital paramedics get there quickly with a stroke. It’s niggling me whether that wait made all the difference.”
Pauline was found slumped in her chair by Carl at his home in Old Swan, Liverpool. She was yesterday recovering at Broadgreen Hospital.
The North West Ambulance Service has apologised and vowed to launch an investigation into the incident on September 14.
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