A 94-year-old grandmother was left waiting SEVEN hours for an ambulance with her foot ‘hanging off’ after a fall.
Eileen Pool broke one of the 26 bones in her foot after slipping over at home while getting undressed.
But despite her son Godfrey calling paramedics at around 7.30pm on the evening of July 4, they didn’t arrive until 3.30am the following morning.
Call handlers told him that due to the high volume of calls, she would be treated as low priority.
But Mrs Pool’s family claim that given her age, “the shock could have killed her”.
Geoffrey, 64, said: “It was too long a wait for a 94-year-old. At that age, the shock could’ve killed her.
“I started off holding her foot in place and then managed to keep it in a neutral position using pillows otherwise it was just wobbling around – you could hear the bones rattling.
“The advice from 999 was to put the leg in a splint and to give her paracetamol or something stronger, which I didn’t have.
“Fortunately my mum was fairly relaxed but it was a terribly painful and stressful wait.”
Mr Pool, a sports injury specialist, luckily had the knowledge to act quickly after finding his mother on the floor at the home they share in Colchester, Essex.
He said: “Because of the training I had with the Football Association, I knew how to feel for the pedis pulse in the foot to check the blood supply hadn’t been cut off and how to reduce the fracture.
“It’s classic sports injury.”
Mrs Pool will stay at Colchester General Hospital until doctors are confident her ankle is on the mend.
More than 300 serious or life threatening emergency calls were made in Essex on that day, putting huge pressure on ambulance crews.
A spokesman for the service passed on their apologies to the family for any distress caused.
He added: “While we strive to provide an excellent service to our patients, on this occasions we haven’t met the high standards set and expected by ourselves and the patients we help.
“Our crews and control room staff are facing considerable pressures and so it follows that patient numbers and demand impact on our ability to respond as quickly as people expect us to, who aren’t in a serious or life threatening condition.
“We would urge the family to contact us if they wish for this to be investigated further.”
