A pensioner with a serious heart condition feared for his life as he sat alone in a hospital waiting room for more than eight hours after collapsing at home.
Retired factory worker John Derry, 84, blacked-out at his home on St Ronan's Road, Monkseaton, in the early hours of Thursday morning, and was found on the floor by wife Marion at roughly 1am. Marion's crippling arthritis meant she was initially unable to move her husband, but after many hours managed to get John into a chair.
The pair were anxious to contact the emergency services due to widely-reported NHS pressures. The couple had waited all day but given John's potentially life-threatening heart condition, chronic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, Marion finally called for an ambulance at around 6.30pm, but says she was told by dispatchers to expect a call back instead.
