Woman fell off plane’s stairs, waited hour for ambulance

A woman who suffered several injuries, after falling from stairs while disembarking an aircraft at Cork Airport, had to wait on the ground for an hour for an ambulance.

An investigation by the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) , published yesterday, said that while the Airport Police and Fire Service (APFS) were on the scene immediately and monitoring the woman, it considered “an hour is a significant time for a person with potentially serious injuries to be lying on the ground at an international airport”.

The Hiqa-recommended response time for an ambulance for such patients is 19 minutes.