Inquiry sought over wait for ambulance

The husband of a woman who died after choking is seeking an investigation into a 20-minute wait for an ambulance to come to her.

Liz Riordan, 53, who had a muscle-wasting condition, choked while eating in a restaurant in Tralee, Co Kerry, on Nov 24.

It happened less than 2km from Kerry General Hospital in Tralee, but as all the Tralee ambulances were otherwise engaged at the time it took 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive from Listowel.

Her husband, Michael Riordan, from Caherciveen, Co Kerry, said if he had been told there was no ambulance in Tralee to take his wife from the scene, he would have taken her straight to the hospital.

He tried to explain to the ambulance control centre where the location was, on the Killorglin side of Tralee, but ambulance control did not know where it was.

Mr Riordan, a trained first aid responder, said ambulance control told him to commence CPR, which he did, and he tried desperately to resuscitate his wife, who was going blue by the time the ambulance arrived.

“At no stage did they tell me that no ambulance was in the area,’’ he told Kerry’s Eye newspaper.

Ms Riordan was unconscious when the ambulance reached the scene. The paramedics cleared her airway and applied electric shock treatment, but she had suffered brain damage and was put on life support at Kerry General Hospital.

The family took the decision to turn off the life support machine, on Nov 28.

Independent Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae called for a full investigation and is to raise the matter in the Dáil with Health Minister James Reilly.