A man was told he would have died if his wife hadn't driven him to hospital after waiting eight hours for an ambulance.
Darryl Wilson, 54, had been experiencing chest pains and a shortness of breath when his wife Debbie called an ambulance at 10.07pm.
After waiting eight hours, during which time she made another eight frantic 999 calls, Debbie decided to drive her husband the 20 minute journey to Royal Stoke Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent herself.
When they arrived dad Darryl went into cardiac arrest and needed emergency heart surgery which included two stents being fitted.
His ambulance arrived at their home in Cheadle 81 minutes after they left for the hospital. Darryl says nurses told him he wouldn't be alive now if he'd waited for it.
West Midlands Ambulance Service has since apologised to the couple for the latest marathon delay, which happened in October.
The ambulance had been called at 10.07pm and did not arrive until 7.46am the following morning - 81 minutes after the couple had left for the Royal Stoke. The ambulance service had categorised Darryl as a category two patient. Debbie had made eight further frantic 999 calls during the night.
Debbie, aged 57, told Stoke-on-Trent Live: “They took all the details off me, his symptoms, my address, ‘Is he conscious? Is he breathing?’. At the time he was. They asked ‘What’s the ratio of pain between one and 10?’ He said ‘20’. They said, ‘We’ll have an ambulance to you as soon as we can'.
“I was scared about moving him. You sit there and don’t know what's best to do. Should we hang on a bit? They could be here in a minute. Then, he couldn’t wait any longer. I think adrenaline kicked in and off we went.”
He said: “The nurses have said that if I had waited any longer for the ambulance, I wouldn’t have a stent and I wouldn't be alive. We just kept hanging on, and every time we rang we had to go through everything every single time. They don’t tell you how long it’ll be.
“I was in that much pain. I was on the floor most of the time. I thought it was the end of my life. I remember saying to Deb, ‘I’ve had it here, I’ve got no help'. The pain was just horrendous.
“I just want to tell other people so it doesn't happen to them. If it happened to me again, I wouldn’t wait for an ambulance, no way. I’d go straight away and get a taxi.”
Darryl is now at home recovering.
His 25-year-old daughter Tara Wilson added: “We are a family that does not abuse the system, and yet when we needed and begged for the help of healthcare professionals we did not receive it.
"For what reason, did this call take nine hours and 11 minutes? We are lucky, my father is home and able to recover, but if we had waited, it would be very different. I fear that other families might not be as lucky as us.”
A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: “We would like to apologise to Mr Wilson and his family for the delayed response. The ambulance service relies on each part of the health and social care system working together so that our ambulances can get to patients in the community quickly.
"Sadly, the pressures we are seeing in health and social care lead to long hospital handover delays with our crews left caring for patients that need admitting to hospital rather than responding to the next call. The result is that our crews are delayed reaching patients.
“We are working incredibly hard with all of our NHS and social care partners to prevent these delays, looking at new ways to safely hand over patients quickly so that our crews can respond more rapidly and save more lives.”
