Father’s bleeding death blamed on health cuts

The family of a man who bled to death after waiting almost 40 minutes for an ambulance have blamed health cuts for his death.

Dualtagh Donnelly, 25, died after he severed an artery in his arm on a glass door at his home in Dundalk on October 26.

Following an emergency call by his partner, it took more than 20 minutes for a paramedic to arrive on the scene and almost 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.

Mr Donnelly’s partner, Lindzie Cooney, believes he would still be alive if an ambulance had arrived earlier.

“I don’t know where the ambulance came from but it just seemed to take forever for them to get here,” said Ms Cooney.

She voiced her frustration at having to wait so long on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke programme.

“He was bleeding so much. It was just awful,” she said.

Neighbours came to the aid of Ms Cooney, wrapping towels around Mr Donnelly’s arm to prevent the blood coming out so quickly.

“It wouldn’t stop. It just kept coming and coming and coming,” she said.

Ms Cooney described it as a “traumatising” experience. “He was never taken out of my house,” she said. He died in my kitchen.”

The National Ambulance Service (NAS) confirmed in a statement an emergency call was received at 3.06am.

“At the time the call was received, a number of NAS emergency resources were dealing with other emergency calls and the nearest available emergency resources, a rapid response vehicle with an advanced paramedic on board and an emergency ambulance were dispatched to the incident and arrived at the scene at 03:29 and 03:45hrs,” it said

Health Minister Leo Varadkar offered his condolences and said any complaint will be investigated fully. When asked about the family calling for an ambulance to be stationed permanently in Dundalk, he said Hiqa has advised having a dynamic deployment of ambulances rather than a strategic placement of vehicles:

“That’s where we are moving towards and that’s best practice and best advice,” said Mr Varadkar.