Father, 47, dies in carpark as claim ambulances took 42 minutes to arrive; Brave volunteers tried to keep him alive

A volunteer has spoken out about his heroic attempts to save 47-year-old man who had a heart attack on a footpath – with claims ambulances were ramped and took 42 minutes to arrive.

A man, 47, died on a Plympton footpath after a 42-minute wait for an ambulance, despite desperate attempts by heroic bystanders to revive him.

Ambulance union officials say the male driver – a father – pulled over on Monday afternoon at Plympton suffering chest pains and called for an ambulance, but after 35 minutes he went into cardiac arrest.

They say a bystander commenced CPR and paramedics arrived five minutes later but were unable to resuscitate him.

Witnesses say there was a crowd around the man and a bus was stopped nearby outside The Highway hotel on Anzac Highway.

Several police cars and a fire truck also converged on the scene.

The Ambulance Employees Association says at the time, there were ambulances ramped, some for more than six hours, and there were more than 20 “uncovered life-threatening emergencies” across Adelaide.

SA Ambulance said the call came at a time demand for ambulances was “incredibly high.”

It was initially triaged as a Priority 2 based on information provided – requiring a response within 16 minutes – and later upgraded to a Priority 1 with paramedics arriving on scene within five minutes of the upgraded response.

But overall, the total response time was 42 minutes.

WITNESSES RUSH TO HELP

Josh Hamdorf, 22, was working as a waiter at The Highway when the incident occurred and performed CPR for the first time, attempting to save the man’s life.

“A gentleman came running past me and said he wanted a defibrillator,” he said.

“We asked him where (the victim) was and what was happening.

“We ran through the doors and he told us, ‘he’s down in the carpark’,” Mr Hamdorf said.

“When I got there with my manager, I saw the door open and the man slumped back in the seat.

“We decided to get him out of the car and start CPR.”

In the Plympton car park, brave volunteer Josh Hamdorf performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. Sadly, the victim, 47, could not be revived. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

Mr Hamdorf performed CPR until the first paramedic arrived on the scene.

“(The paramedic) was administering drugs, and I was still doing CPR until the second paramedic arrived,” he said.

“I looked at the defibrillator from when the first paramedic got there, it had a running timer and I think it stopped at about 30 minutes.

“I knew once it hit about eight minutes without oxygen to the brain that it dies,” Mr Hamdorf said.

Mr Hamdorf said he didn’t know about the ambulance waiting times until he heard the news on Tuesday morning.

“When we got (to the man) we didn’t know how long he had been there; we thought it might have just happened so we didn’t know,” he said.

“When the paramedics arrived, they came in real fast and they were racing around.
“Everyone that was there, like the paramedics, did as much as they could have done,” Mr Hamdorf said.

PREMIER’S RESPONSE

Premier Peter Malinauskas said the response time was “not good enough” and an investigation into the man’s death was under way.

At a media conference on Tuesday morning, the Premier pushed back at suggestions enough wasn’t being done to ease ramping pressure on the ambulance system.

“More broadly, a relatively young man has tragically lost their life under circumstances that may have been preventable,” he said.

“I always am loath to talk about these circumstances in high-level public policy terms when we’re talking about a young man losing their life – a father losing their life – that’s beyond tragic.

“(But) our objective is to get ambulance response times back down to a more appropriate level.”

“It’s going to take time, we were clear about that, but we’re doing our absolute best.”

At 5:19pm yesterday a 47yo male suffering chest pain pulled over & called 000 in Plympton. After 35m the patient was in cardiac arrest, a bystander started CPR. An ambulance finally arrived after 40m, tragically Paramedics were unable to resuscitate him.

— Ambulance Employees Association (SA) (@aeasa1981) August 9, 2022

At the same time there were 20 uncovered life-threatening emergencies across Adelaide, SAAS was OPSTAT White. Ambulances ramped at all major hospitals some >6hrs. This patient was only minutes away from hospital. Ramping deprived this patient of his best chance of survival.

— Ambulance Employees Association (SA) (@aeasa1981) August 9, 2022

The AEA and its members extend their deepest sympathies to the patient's family at this time.

— Ambulance Employees Association (SA) (@aeasa1981) August 9, 2022

SA Ambulance Service confirmed a call was received at 5.18pm at a time of “incredibly high demand.”

“SAAS offers its deepest condolences to the family of the gentleman who sadly passed away in Plympton,” the SAAS statement says.

“Demand for ambulance services was incredibly high and we acknowledge that hospitals were also under significant pressure.

“Delays are not acceptable and while our staff did everything they could, the outcome was a tragic one.

“It is deeply distressing for the family, bystanders and our staff at this time and we continue to bolster the workforce to ensure all those who need help get it.

“We are committed to delivering 350 new staff in coming years, with the first new crew comprising 28 ambos now on the road.”

The tragedy comes as the health system yet again struggles to deal with demand, with average waiting times to be seen blowing out to more than six hours in major hospitals and emergency departments crammed with people waiting for a ward bed.

At 10am on Tuesday – normally a fairly quiet time – the metropolitan system had run out of inpatient beds leaving patients stuck in EDs and new non-critical arrivals stuck in waiting rooms.

The metropolitan system has 2959 inpatient beds but there were 2917 inpatients and 148 admissions waiting for beds.

The cascading result meant the average waiting time to be seen at Lyell McEwin Hospital ED was more than 6.7 hours, at Flinders Medical Centre it was 6.2 hours and at Modbury Hospital 4.5 hours.

Non-critical arrivals at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Noarlunga Hospital faced a 1.5 hour wait to be seen, while at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital it was 40 minutes.

The logjam was partly due to the EDs being full of people who had been treated but were warehoused there while waiting for an appropriate ward bed.

At 10am there were 125 such cases, including 12 people who had been waiting for more than 24 hours for a ward bed.

There were 79 non-critical cases biding their time in waiting rooms or expected to arrive by ambulance.

Meanwhile a 14-year-old male from metropolitan Adelaide has contracted meningococcal infection and is in a stable condition in hospital, with nine close contacts put on antibiotics as a precaution.

It is the ninth case so far this year, all the B strain, compared with six cases at the same time last year and 12 in total for 2021.