An elderly woman was left lying in the cold street for nine hours with a broken hip because there were no ambulances to take her to hospital. Mary Kinsella's desperate family repeatedly called the ambulance service in Cornwall after the 72-year-old fell and injured herself on Tuesday afternoon, but they were told there simply wasn't one available to take her to hospital.
Mary's granddaughter Bethany told CornwallLive her grandmother fell while she was out walking her dog in Helston, Cornwall, on Tuesday afternoon. The dog bolted when it saw a cat in Albion Street, leaving Mary tumbling to the ground. An ambulance was called at 1.35pm to help the pensioner - but one didn't turn up until 10.30pm that night.
To make matters worse, Mary was still in an ambulance sat outside Royal Cornwall Hospital - formerly and still commonly known as the Treliske Hospital - more than 24 hours after her fall because there were no beds available inside for her. Bethany said their family felt helpless as they waited for the ambulance to arrive, and they couldn't move her because she was in agony.
