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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Steven Morris

‘I feel so let down’: long waits for ambulances in south-west England

Richard Carpenter
Richard Carpenter, 71, died after waiting for more than five hours for an ambulance. Photograph: supplied

More than four hours after an ambulance was called, Richard Carpenter, 71, who had had a suspected heart attack, began to despair. “Where are they?” he asked his wife, Jeanette. “I’m going to die.”

She tried to reassure her husband that the crew must surely be close. Perhaps they were struggling to find their rural Wiltshire home in the dark. “But I could see I was losing him,” she said. She gave her husband CPR and urged him: “Don’t leave me.” But by the time the paramedics arrived another hour or so later, it was too late.

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