The distraught family of a 19-year-old man who was found dead after waiting on an ambulance that failed to turn up say they are "broken". Bradley Holder was found dead on Monday December 19, after calling 999 for help the night before.
Emergency services attended the property on High Lane, in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, the next morning after a second call was made from the home. Brad initially phoned 999 at 6.12pm on Sunday December 18.
But due to hospital handover delays and West Midlands Ambulance Service being busy with similar calls, no ambulance was dispatched.
At 9.04am on Monday, someone in the home made a second 999 call and just minutes later, Brad was sadly pronounced dead at the scene, StokeonTrentLive reports.
His death is currently being treated as unexplained by Staffordshire Police. One of his loved-ones said today: "We are broken. 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 said the trust was experiencing long delays at the time of the first call and they were "working incredibly hard to respond more rapidly and save more lives".
An ambulance service spokesman said: “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.
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