A cardiac patient who had to be transferred from an ambulance to a police car after youths had disabled the ambulance yesterday described the experience as "terrifying".
The ambulance taking Mr Bernard Feeney (48) from Springvale Park in Derry to the city's Altnagelvin Hospital, was attacked at the weekend by a group of youths. Two of them threw a scooter under the vehicle as it was taking Mr Feeney, who was suffering from a suspect heart attack, to hospital.
The scooter became entangled with the ambulance's hydraulic system and as a result the paramedics were unable to move the vehicle either forward or backward.
Speaking yesterday from his hospital bed, Mr Feeney told how he was lifted from the back of the ambulance into a police car still wearing his oxygen mask and still attached to ECG leads.
"I had an angina attack but I had all the symptoms of a heart attack," said Mr Feeney.
"The ambulance was travelling at speed to get me to hospital. Inside the ambulance I was on a monitor and had an oxygen mask on me. As we were travelling along Madam's Bank Road there was a sudden grinding noise underneath the ambulance and the vehicle came to a halt.
"The paramedic looking after me in the back of the ambulance didn't know what had happened but he kept looking after me and kept reassuring me.
"At this stage I was very concerned for my physical well-being and I was concerned for the safety of the crew and at what was going on about me. The driver couldn't move the ambulance. I didn't know what was going on but I knew I had to get to hospital urgently because I needed medical attention.
"The crew asked me would I feel comfortable being taken over to the hospital in a police vehicle. To be quite honest I couldn't have cared less how I got to hospital. The police arrived on the scene a few minutes later. The paramedics lifted me from the stretcher into the back of the police vehicle and I was still wearing my ECG leads and the oxygen mask.
"I was very scared. I was in very severe, tight pain. I had shortness of breath and I couldn't breathe properly because of my chest pains.
"Whoever did this are totally mindless and absolute thugs. It's time the community took charge and stopped these thugs attacking the ambulance service and the fire service. It's been going on for too long and what happened to me I wouldn't wish on anybody.
"I wonder how those who carried out the attack on the ambulance carrying me to hospital would feel if it was a relative of theirs inside the ambulance," said Mr Feeney.