A family have been left "broken" after a teenager died just days before Christmas when an ambulance failed to turn up despite a desperate 999 call. The body of Bradley Holder, 19, was found at an address in Burslem, near Stoke-on-Trent on Monday, December 19.
Brad called 999 himself at 6.12pm on Sunday, December 18, but West Midlands Ambulance Service was so busy, they did not dispatch an ambulance to him. A second 999 call was then made by someone else in the house at 9.04am on Monday, December 19, but he was tragically pronounced dead at the scene just minutes later, StokeonTrentLive reports.
The 19-year-old's death is currently being treated as 'unexplained' by Staffordshire Police. His family have been left devastated and desperate for answers. Brad was living in Beaconsfield Drive in Blurton and had previously attended Ormiston Sir Stanley Matthews Academy.
A spokesman for the ambulance service said when the original 999 call was made on Sunday evening they were experiencing long handover delays at hospitals and had nearly 80 other calls of the same category awaiting an a dispatch in the county. A loved one of Brad's said the family had been left "broken" by his death, just days before Christmas.
They said: "He was one of the nicest lads you could ever meet. He was just a lovely, lovely kind-mannered lad. We are heartbroken."
The ambulance service says the NHS is 'working incredibly hard to respond more rapidly and save more lives'. A spokesman explained: "At the time of the original call - at 6.12pm on Sunday - the trust was experiencing long handover delays at hospitals and had 78 other calls of the same category awaiting dispatch in the county. Unfortunately, this meant that we were not able to dispatch an ambulance to Mr Holder at the time.
"A further call - at 9.04am on Monday - was triaged as Category 1 with the first ambulance arriving six minutes later. In total, two ambulances and a paramedic officer attended the scene. On arrival they discovered Mr Holder. Unfortunately, he was confirmed dead at the scene.
“The ambulance service relies on each part of the health and social care system working together so that our ambulances can get to patients in the community quickly. Sadly, the pressures we are seeing in health and social care lead to long hospital handover delays with our crews left caring for patients that need admitting to hospital rather than responding to the next call. The result is that our crews are delayed reaching patients.
“We are working incredibly hard with all of our NHS and social care partners to prevent these delays, looking at new ways to safely hand over patients quickly so that our crews can respond more rapidly and save more lives.”
Anyone who saw Bradley before he passed away should call the police on 101 or call Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.
