Grandad 'thought he was going to die' after two-hour ambulance wait

Terrence Howard, from Chadwick Street, Little Lever, fell as he was leaving Radcliffe Bus Station on Tuesday evening leaving him shaken up and with cuts on his face and and hands

He was helped by passers-by who covered him with blankets, but he was dizzy and unable to get up from the ground.

After receiving a call about the incident, his daughter, Paula, called an ambulance as she rushed over to the area from Stretford, but when she arrived the paramedics were still not there.

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“My dad was on the concrete ground, freezing cold with some blankets from a shop over the road,” she said. “There was blood everywhere and he was freezing.

“When I got there they still hadn’t arrived in the ambulance and when I rang again they said they didn’t know how long it would be.”

Mr Howard fell at around 5pm but waited for an ambulance until after 7pm.

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His daughter called the emergency services four times and was repeatedly told that paramedics were very busy. It was not until he began struggling to breathe that an ambulance arrived at the scene.

“He wasn’t a priority, if I hadn’t said that he wasn’t breathing properly then they wouldn’t have come until later,” Ms Howard said.

“I kept telling them he was on the ground but they said if he gets worse or his condition changes ring back. If you were 72 with blood coming out of your head on the concrete ground your health might change distinctly.

“He thought he was going to die because he was so cold. A pensioner is a vulnerable person it can be horrible for them.”

She went on to thank the driver of a bus at the station, who initially rang the ambulance, and a woman who stayed with Mr Howard throughout the ordeal.

She added: "There was a bus driver called David Taylor who called an ambulance and a member of the public called Georgia who sat for two hours holding my dad's head and helping him while he lay there.

"I want to say a big thank you to them and to the staff at Lidl who gave us the blankets."

A spokesman for the North West Ambulance Service said: “At 5.04pm we received a 999 call for a man who had fallen. Based on the information given by the caller it was prioritised as requiring a category three response which we aim to get to within two hours. Following further calls regarding a change to the patient’s condition, the call was upgraded to a category one at 6.59pm and we arrived on scene at 7.07pm.

“We always try to get to patients as quickly as we can but we have to prioritise those in an immediately life-threatening condition in order to get them the help they need as soon as possible.

“We are sorry for any distress caused and would encourage the patient or a family member to contact us directly so we can discuss this with them in more detail. We sincerely hope he is recovering well.”