Wife died after waiting 16 hours for ambulance despite frantic 999 calls

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Jasper King for Metro.co.uk




A devastated husband says his wife died after waiting more than 16 hours for an ambulance.

Teresa Simpson, 54, died after suffering a cardiac arrest and lack of oxygen to the brain at Hull Royal Infirmary in November.

She suffered from diabetes and a muscle-wasting disease and had fallen ill at her home in Hull.

Her husband Matthew Simpson had pulled an emergency lifeline cord and the couple spoke to an operator on the phone.

But an ambulance only arrived when Matt made a second 999 call while Teresa was ‘lifeless’.

Matthew says he remains ‘angry’ with Yorkshire Ambulance Service and believes his wife’s life could have been saved if paramedics arrived earlier.

He told Sky News: ‘She was my best friend, my soul mate. She was very supportive and loving. She was in a wheelchair, yes, but she never once moaned about her illness.

‘One hundred per cent I believe that if they got to my wife in six hours she would still be here now because she would have got help.



‘We both knew we were on borrowed time because of her myotonic dystrophy. But there is no way she should’ve been left to die the way she did.’

The couple were due to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary together this year but instead, Matthew will receive his wife’s ashes.

In a statement, Yorkshire Ambulance Service offered him sincere condolences: ‘Our patient relations team has received correspondence from him raising concerns about our response to this incident. They will liaise directly with Mr Simpson about specific details relating to this.’

Patients are also being treated in ambulances because hospitals are so ‘overburdened’.

Workers laid bare to Metro.co.uk last month about the acute pressures on the ambulance service and NHS over the winter period.

A worker described how crews spend entire 12-hour shifts waiting outside overburdened A&E departments.

Another told how she tells patients ‘the NHS is broken’ and said she had to be relieved by another crew while stuck outside a hospital with an elderly patient at the end of a shift.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

There may be A LOT of problems with the American healthcare system, but thank god that if I have to call 911 for an ambulance, I'll have one show up in minutes, not hours. I'd rather deal with having to navigate the insurance and the costs incurred after a serious incident than having a loved one die because they couldn't even dispatch an ambulance to me.

[lost in melb.]

There may be A LOT of problems with the American healthcare system, but thank god that if I have to call 911 for an ambulance, I'll have one show up in minutes, not hours. I'd rather deal with having to navigate the insurance and the costs incurred after a serious incident than having a loved one die because they couldn't even dispatch an ambulance to me.

Sounds like a good service in Denver.

[deebakes]

it would be that way in most places in the us, even rural areas have ambulance/emergency crews that can get there pretty quickly (assuming no blizzards or other weather impacts)

[Teh One Who Knocks]

it would be that way in most places in the us, even rural areas have ambulance/emergency crews that can get there pretty quickly (assuming no blizzards or other weather impacts)

Exactly. Unless you live somewhere really remote, or there's bad weather like you said, in most places an ambulance would most likely arrive in 10 to 15 minutes.