Emergency vehicle arrives 30 minutes late as man transports father to hospital

In a tragic incident that took place in 2021, a 43-year-old man suffered a deep cut to an artery in his arm while loading glass and timber into a bin on a building site. The man's son called the ambulance at 3.39pm, but due to a series of errors, an ambulance did not arrive at the scene until more than 30 minutes later, and the man had already been taken to the hospital by his son.

The man later died at the hospital. The commissioner, Morag McDowell, found multiple failings in St John's handling of the call. According to the commissioner, there was a gap in the system's knowledge, and the dispatcher lacked information on the situation.

Two calls from the worksite were logged as one job, and neither operator escalated the call to a clinical advisor for medical advice. The software used in the St John call centre classified the incident as serious but not immediately life-threatening, which meant it did not meet the criteria for immediate dispatch of an ambulance.

The commissioner considered the errors in call-handling to be an organizational failing. St John's internal review into the incident was criticized as inconsistent and not reliable. The Health and Disability Commissioner Morag McDowell also criticised St John for these failings.

St John has since made efforts to reduce errors and will review recommendations to further strengthen systems and processes. The organisation has also made changes to ensure high-priority incidents are reviewed and escalated to clinicians where appropriate.

The man's son provided advice to try to stem the bleeding during the call, but he got angry and hung up when he was told that an ambulance was still 15 minutes away. The son was forced to drive his father to the hospital in a work van due to the lack of an ambulance. A second ambulance was sent to a less urgent incident before one was dispatched to the work site, arriving at 4.32pm.

St John has apologised to the man's family and debriefed the staff members involved. The commissioner's report has highlighted the need for urgent action to improve the organisation's response times and call-handling procedures.