The family of a young father who waited more than 20 minutes for a paramedic and nearly 40 minutes for an ambulance, has said he may have survived if an ambulance arrived earlier.
Dualtagh Donnelly died after cutting his arm on a glass panel in the bathroom door of his home in Marion Park, Dundalk, in the early hours of Monday, October 26th.
The family said it took nearly 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive although a paramedic arrived in a specially equipped rapid response car, after 24 minutes. The HSE say the response vehicle responded in 23 minutes.
Mr Donnelly’s partner, Lindzie Cooney, said he had cut an artery in his right arm and began losing blood very quickly. She said she tried her best to stop the bleeding and told the ambulance control centre that he was losing consciousness.
Mr Donnelly’s mother, Oonagh, and Ms Cooney said it’s time for an emergency ambulance to be always on standby in Dundalk. Ms Donnelly said she believes Dualtagh (25) “would be alive today if there was an ambulance with him within 15 minutes. Always, always there should be an ambulance in Dundalk”.
Ms Cooney, who is pregnant with the couple’s third child, made the 999 call at 3.06am. Their house is a five minute drive from Dundalk ambulance station which is beside the Louth County Hospital.
Ms Cooney said her partner was lying on the kitchen floor when the ambulance and crew of paramedics arrived at 3.45am and “it seemed like a short time later that they could not do anymore for him”.
It is not known where the rapid response vehicle or ambulance which responded to Lindzie’s 999 call had come from. Ms Cooney said: “If an ambulance had got to him earlier he would not have lost so much blood. What happened was an absolute disgrace, it was too long for an ambulance to come. It has left me very angry that you wait that long with somebody bleeding to death.”
Ms Cooney and Ms Donnelly said the HSE should reopen the emergency department at the Louth County Hospital andprovide a permanent ambulance at Dundalk.
“This will happen again to some other family,” said Ms Donnelly. “Always, always there should be an ambulance in Dundalk.”
In a statement the HSE said the emergency call was received at 3.06am.
It said, “At the time the call was received a number of NAS emergency resources were dealing with other emergency calls and the nearest available emergency resources, a rapid response vehicle with an advanced paramedic on board and an emergency ambulance were dispatched to the incident and arrived at the scene at 03:29 and 03:45hrs.”