Tungkillo man dies waiting an hour for an ambulance

A woman who found her father dead after she beat ambulance officers to his Hills home when he suffered a heart attack says he was given little chance to survive.

A daughter has shared the heavy emotional toll of the ramping crisis which she said gave her father no chance to survive an unexpected heart attack.

Amelia Farrow was around 40 minutes from her father Tony’s, 79, home in Tungkillo when he called her to say he was experiencing chest pain on January 24 this year.

Ms Farrow told him to immediately call triple-0 and quickly jumped in the car herself to attend.

She arrived at the property before paramedics did.

“I walked in and I found that my dad had unfortunately passed away. I did commit CPR when I first got there,” Ms Farrow said.

“I’m unsure how long it was until the ambulance arrived, I would say maybe 10 minutes or probably a bit longer.”

The call out was originally listed as a priority two, which required requires an ambulance to respond within 16 minutes from the time triple-0 has been called.

She said that she was shocked no ambulance was there to provide assistance for more than an hour.

“I live with that fact every day wondering whether if there was an ambulance that was more timely, whether the outcome would have been different for my father and our family,” she said.

“You hear the stories, you see it in the news, media, social media. I see ambulances, I hear sirens. It’s all just a constant reminder of how my family and of course my dad has been failed.”

Ms Farrow said she felt compelled to share her story following the string of deaths caused by the ramping crisis this week.

“My Dad would fight every injustice that he was confronted with and I guess that’s where I’m finding the strength to come here (today) to share our story,” she said.

The latest victim was a 58-year-old man who died while waiting two hours for help after falling at his home at Magill last night.

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The man was initially triaged as a priority two case but another call from the scene upgraded the case to a priority one.

Paramedics arrived shortly after the call was upgraded but still outside the priority one response time, and were unable to resuscitate the man.

The Ambulance Employees Association secretary Leah Watkins said crews and communications staff were devastated.

“They are absolutely gutted by another death, a potentially avoidable death of a patient,” she said.

“I‘ve spoken to the co-ordinator who was in tears this morning, talking about what it was like working last night. She said that most priority two cases waited about two hours, because there were so many pending for most of the night.”

One priority two patient was forced to wait a staggering 11 hours for help to arrive.

“The ambulance services are overwhelmed and this government is doing nothing to prevent this from happening again, today, tomorrow or any other day,” Ms Watkins said.

“We’ve received support from everyone except the Liberal Party, they are the only ones that are refusing to acknowledge the gravity of this crisis that we are in.”

Health Minister Stephen Wade apologised to the families of the patient.

It comes a day after a 20-year-old was revealed as one of the two people who died waiting for delayed ambulances on Monday evening, according to the union.

“The biggest insult is an apology when someone does not change their behaviour,” Ms Watkins said.

The SA Ambulance Service was contacted for comment.