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

SharonEllis · 22/11/2025 17:16

My daughter had a seizure and they came in about half an hour.

I helped an old lady who fell in the street and was lying right on the edge of the kerb. I put my scarf under her head which was bleeding, stood on the road so she didnt get hit by a car and my partner rang for an ambulance. They said the wait would be 5 hours. Luckily a nurse came by and decided it was safe to move her off the edge of the freezing cold pavement. Eventually she took her to the hospital rather than wait 5 hours. Absolutely shocking.

GetOverTheEgo · 22/11/2025 17:18

4-ish hours. It was an elderly neighbour who slipped in the road and had a very obvious broken leg.

But that was pre-covid times and while I thought it was outrageous at the time tbh nowadays I'd probably think it was okay.

He was fine thankfully.

Skippydoodle · 22/11/2025 17:31

More than 4 hours, and an inevitably dead person 😔 Apparently, according to the tv adds, you should act quickly in the case of a stroke. I did, the ambulance did not.

OneReasonWhy · 22/11/2025 18:13

I don’t think people realise just how few ambulance crews are on duty at any one point in time. Even 10, 15, 20 years ago I was regularly the only, or one of only two or three paramedics on duty overnight, with maybe three crews total to cover a large city and surrounding areas. It is literally clearing from one job, straight to the next. We couldn’t even do our start of shift checks properly. The second you log on you’re out the door. It’s worse now and pretty much all ambulance services are on a recruitment freeze too so it will only get worse.

billysboy · 22/11/2025 18:19

I think more people need to get the patient there themselves rather than sit and wait
when my dad collapsed we were told 4 hours so we scooped him up and got him in
if we had waited I don’t think
we would have had the same outcome
his stomach had ruptured into his abdomen

dazedbutstillhere · 23/11/2025 06:10

billysboy · 22/11/2025 18:19

I think more people need to get the patient there themselves rather than sit and wait
when my dad collapsed we were told 4 hours so we scooped him up and got him in
if we had waited I don’t think
we would have had the same outcome
his stomach had ruptured into his abdomen

It is a tough call sometimes.
DH decided that doing CPR on the pavement somewhere between home and hospital would be more risky than continuing to plead with the call handler. He reasoned that if he ended up doing CPR on the floor at home they would have to send somebody. Hopefully.

dazedbutstillhere · 24/11/2025 09:10

LovingLimePeer · 20/11/2025 21:30

5 hours at the side of a road with someone with signs of a spinal injury and leg numbness after they were hit by a car. Ambulance service ignored repeated calls and I eventually had to lie and pretend she was developing signs of haemorrhagic shock so I could get them to prioritise her.

I had to get the police to drive to the nearest hospital to take a neck brace from the emergency team so I could stabilise her neck while she waited for them to come. Truly appalling.

Even the ambulance crew told me they were shocked (while they were spinal boarding her).

Edited

It all depends on ticking the boxes on the call handler's list. In the right order. If you get it wrong you can be categorised incorrectly. My heart attack was absolutely text book and the call handler clearly thought we were making it up. No way were they sending anybody. Terrifying.