Accident by hospital but ambulance late arriving

An inquest has heard that it took 17 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the scene of an accident even though the deceased, a 75-year-old pedestrian, had been knocked down 200m from an ambulance station.

The inquest into the death of Maureen Kane was told the HSE had initially said that it took 45 minutes for an ambulance to respond, but later corrected this to 17 minutes after it emerged there was a problem with the button paramedics must press in the ambulance when they arrive at a call.

Yesterday at the inquest, paramedic Jackie Connolly said that when she pressed the ‘on scene’ button in the ambulance — which sends a message to the ambulance service that a crew has arrived at its call — it wasn’t working and “rather than waste time on it”, she went to treat the patient.