Heart broken widow speaks following the death of her husband
A heartbroken widow has opened up about her husband dying in her warms, while the couple waited over 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
Stewart Grant, aged 82, suffered breathing difficulties at 12:30 pm on January 29 at his Phillip Island home in Victoria, but paramedics were not dispatched immediately despite his family calling triple-zero.
His wife of more than 50 years, Carol Grant, said she was initially told no one was coming.
But a short time later, Mr Grant stopped breathing.
An operator called back 12 minutes after the initial conversation and counted with Ms Grant while she performed CPR on her husband.
“She asked me to get him out of bed, and put him on the floor, lie him on his back and to start CPR,” she said.
After the ambulance was finally dispatched, an alert system to find trained volunteers was initiated and three locals came to help.
“I’d just like to thank them for everything they tried to do. I’m just so grateful for their help as I couldn’t have continued (performing CPR),” Ms Grant said.
“Even though it wasn’t successful, I’m just so grateful to them for trying.”
Health Minister Martin Foley said the case was tragic, and told reporters on Thursday that there were issues with how the call was prioritised by the triple-zero call service ESTA.
“As I understand, the issue wasn’t so much the dispatch of the ambulance. The paramedics were there, other volunteers in the nearby community were there, once the call was distributed,” he said.
State Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the case was horrifying and demanded an explanation from the government.
“If it’s the call-out and dispatch system, then it’s the government’s to manage ... It’s just not good enough to say it’s someone else’s fault. How the hell can this happen in Victoria in 2022?” he asked.
Premier Daniel Andrews sent his condolences and said the coroner would examine the tragedy.
“This pandemic has made the job of our ambos really tough, they’re all working as hard as they can and any time that a patient dies I know that that’s carried by our paramedics; they feel it very heavily,” he told reporters.
Ambulance Victoria has also sent its sincere condolences to the Grant family and said it had undertaken a review of the case.
Mr Grant’s case is not the only recent death in Victoria following a long wait for paramedics.
Victorian paramedics experienced their busiest quarter on record in the last three months of 2021. Data shows ambulances were called to 91,397 code-one cases during that period, a 16% increase on the same time in 2020.
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