The family of a gran who was left lying on the freezing floor waiting for an ambulance has said how "awful" it is to see the service broken.
Kerris David, 45, received a call from her brother, Nathan 28, at around 3pm on Monday, October 17 after their 68-year-old mum, Rose, fell over while walking on Bebington Road in New Ferry, Wirral. Rose and Nathan had just got back from a weekend in Southport and were walking home with suitcases when she tripped over a lose brick in the ground.
Rose immediately felt pain in her back, hip and neck after falling over and her son called 999. They were told the wait for an ambulance was 40 minutes and asked Nathan to keep his mum where she was on the floor as they suspected she had a broken hip.
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Kerris arrived a short while later and said she was horrified to see her mum lying on the "freezing floor".
She told The ECHO : "I called back around an hour after and the call handler said the next vehicle would be for her and we should only be waiting another 30/40 minutes. I went home for a little bit [to look after two young children while her brother stayed with her mum] and somebody knocked on my door another hour later to tell me she was still lying there in the street.
"I ran back with fleece blankets to wrap her up, because it was absolutely freezing, by this point it was 7pm. It was horrifying, he was shivering and stopped breathing at one point.
"She couldn't move and it felt like no end was in sight. All I could think was that I didn't want my mum to die lying on the freezing cold floor.
"I know the ambulance service is rushed of its feet and it's not the ambulance staff's fault, it's just so awful to see the service so broken because of all the cuts."
An ambulance for Rose arrived at around 7.30pm, four and a half hours after she fell, and took her to hospital. Kerris said her mum was taken for tests and was then put in a corridor overnight as there were no rooms available.
She's now been admitted into a bay for observation. The incident left Kerris and Nathan feeling "heartbroken" and they wished to share their mum's story to show to the true cost of NHS cuts in Merseyside.
A North West Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “We are sorry about the length of time it took to reach Ms David. Of course, this is not what we want for our patients.
"We are all working very hard to ensure everyone who needs an ambulance gets one. However, the NHS remains under extreme pressure, and while patients suffering from life-threatening conditions will receive the next available ambulance, some patients are waiting longer than we would like.
“We wish her a full and swift recovery and invite her or her family to contact our patient safety team if they would like us to look into the incident more closely.”
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