What's the longest you have had to wait for an ambulance?7

[OneUmberJoker]

7 hours

My dad was had a heart attack followed by SVT and waited 45 mins. This was 8 years ago and by the time my dad got to hospital his heart rate was 228. They shocked him back into normal rhythm but it was very scary waiting that long.

FIL waited 10 hours in Scotland this Spring with a broken hip on his bathroom floor. My mum waited about 2 hours to be picked up then about another 10 in the back of the ambulance with a stroke this time last year in the South East. Both in their 80’s with pre existing conditions - cancer and heart failure. Both still here.

A year ago, I was told it was a 7 hr wait, so I drove the patient to the hospital myself. Awful journey with them screaming in pain. Got there, went in and asked for a wheelchair. No one wanted to help, blank faces all round. So I found a wheelchair, wrestled him in it and wheeled him in, screaming like a banshee. That mobilised them.

It was at least an hour, DD having seizures and her care plan is to call an ambulance immediately. She has brain damage already. It was horrible.

im reading this thread wondering if I’m unusual because I’ve never called one, and don’t know anyone that ever did. Or are all similar folk scrolling on by as they’ve nothing to contribute. Like me I guess.

Many of these waits are outrageous, makes me angry and sad in equal measure.

I broke my leg recently. We live in rural France. Ambulance, 3 pompiers and a nurse arrived within 10 minutes.

My mum was 4 hours with a sudden brain haemorrhage, was called in as stroke with stroke symptoms and unfortunately didn’t survive. I always wonder what if as I’m a nurse myself. Was told in icu when care was withdrawn that they don’t think it would have changed the outcome but I’ll never know. It sure is hard though at work seeing all the calls from frequent callers and I have to try and seperate myself from that

Had to wait for paramedics, he reacts badly to rescue meds. We're 2 years seizure free thankfully but the trauma stays with you

7 hours at work with a resident that had fallen on fire escape stairs :(

I would say that’s incredibly unusual. I’ve called at least 4 to deal with incidents/accidents I’ve seen in the streets. But then I’ve always lived in big cities so guess more likely to see incidents 🤷‍♀️

I’m the same I’m lucky I’ve never had to call one. I’m shocked at all the elderly people being left for hours on end with broken hips. It’s really not right and shocking that someone would he left for that long when there is no other option.

My DH called an ambulance for me when I had mastitis which was starting to turn septic. I was delirious, confused, sweating, shivering and vomiting. He waited half an hour on hold without being able to speak to a dispatcher at all, by which time his mum had arrived to look after the baby and he got me into the car and drove me to A&E himself. An operator called him back as we arrived at A&E to ask if we still wanted an ambulance. This was almost an hour and a half since he’d phoned 999 and at this point I was hallucinating and everything kept turning black.

Thank goodness he was able to drive me that time, but I’m terrified that one day there might be an emergency with my daughter and we won’t be able to get through on 999 again.

I have waited anything from 30mins-4/5/6 hours with people. I know one lady who waiting 14 hours.

Knocked down by a hit and run driver and found unconscious in the road.
They wouldn’t send an ambulance and was taken to A&E in the back of a car, triaged and was seen immediately.

Our incident with a 25 hour wait was the first time we had ever had to call an ambulance & our first ever time in A&E. DH works for the NHS so we're very conscious that his wait was exceptional.

When my dad hd a cardiac incident at the weekend an ambulance was with him within 20 minutes and they live very rurally with 1 hospital with A& E in the county.

Dad had previously had a cardiac arrest whilst out walking. The air ambulance was there within minutes and Dad is still with us because someone was brave enough to get to the nearest defibrillator & use it.

When I called for an ambulance for an elderly neighbour who was having a stroke they told me there were no ambulances available for the foreseeable future! Told me to ring a taxi or bring her in myself. Shocking. I couldn’t lift her so had to wait for another neighbour to come to help get her in the car. She made a poor recovery and died a few months later. Very sad.

92 year old father in law fell and was on the floor all night waiting for and ambulance. Twice. In the village where I live, there are regularly very long waits. We had a fatality a couple of years back because the ambulance was massively delayed.

It is sad but yes sometimes there isn’t any ambulances
if they are all going to higher priority calls or tied up waiting at hospital. None being available definitely isn’t unusual

My cousin calls them regularly, once he they can within 10 minutes but at the weekend they told him it was a 12 hour wait. So he lied at told them he had overdosed.

He’s an attention seeker and has been warned numerous times about wasting valuable services including the police.

11 hours I have a degenerative sacroiliac joint condition and woke up and literally could not move , it then took a further 1.5 hours to give me enough pain relief to move me :(

I've never called one. Someone else called one for my kid once though. Ambulance took about 90 seconds.

I was thinking about this today. When my DH needed an ambulance it was a nine hour wait. What’s the point of the sirens and the blue lights, when you’ve been waiting nine hours?

Ambulance shouts are triaged and prioritised. It's not a queue and 999 calls made after yours may get seen sooner if they are more urgent. If you are kept waiting for 7 hours it's usually because you aren't in immediate danger and won't have significantly worse outcomes from being left. During that 7 hour wait the paramedics saved several lives from shouts that were triaged to be more urgent. When DH was injured we were fortunate that one of the people present was a doctor - in a totally different speciality and not able to provide on the spot treatment - but he advised me to call a taxi because it was obvious that while DH was injured and in pain, he wasn't getting any worse and wasn't in any danger, so if we had called 999 we would have been waiting for hours, but we didn't.

@Hillyhillyholly the blue lights aren't usually put on at all for the hours-long-wait cases. When my son was bluelighted to hospital unable to breathe it was 10 minutes between 999 call and the ambulance arriving and they used the blue lights then.

45 minutes. I was told to ring back if there was a deterioration so they could bump me up the queue. No alternative was possible as it was for someone who had passed out on the floor.

over an hour for a head injury but the person was also drunk and refused to get into my car, unlike most the people there I was sober (driving). Was told 12 hour wait 3 weeks ago (person at church) so I drove her myself to the minor injuries (10 minutes away) until who after triaging conjured up an ambulance quickly to take her to the main a & e 30 minutes away. The injury was superficial but her blood pressure was all over the place