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Isabel Napoleao with her son Marcos |
I need an ambulance – quick, call the firebrigade
Sorry, we can’t help, mother told after son’s fingers are crushed
A TODDLER whose hand was caught in a door had to be rushed to hospital by a fire engine – after ambulance staff refused to collect him.
Now firefighters say they fear that over-stretched emergency services are calling regularly on the brigade to cover jobs that should not be part of their brief.
Marcos Domingos, aged 18 months, was playing in his mother’s flat on the 14th floor of Oxenholme in Ampthill Square, on Saturday night when he got his hand caught in the hinges of the door to the lounge.
Mother-of-two Isabel Napoleao said: “He chased a ball behind the door and the next thing I knew he was crying out in pain.
“I rushed to see what had happened and he had four fingers caught in the gap between the door and the hinge.I thought it was going to cut all his fingers off, it was closed so tight.”
“I called the fire brigade and they were here within four minutes. They used crow bars to take the door off and then they said they’d call an ambulance.”
Marcos’s hand was severely swollen and the child was in great pain – but after speaking to an ambulance controller, the firefighters were told no ambulance would come and to suggest to the mother she take the child to hospital in a taxi.
Firefighters decided to rush the child to University College Hospital instead.
A firefighter who attended the incident, who did not want to give his name, said: “His hand was terrible – his fingers had gone blue and he was in a bad state. We radioed for an ambulance, and they said they had nothing to send.
“This is becoming more and more common. It is getting harder to get an ambulance when we need one.”
There are plans to equip fire teams with defibrillators, but the firefighter said it could blur the lines of the work they do.
He added: “We are worried if we are asked to start offering other services that the quality will suffer.”
Camden’s dedicated station, based in Lawn Road, South End Green has four ambulances on call at any one time, and a further two response cars.
Centre controllers ask callers a series of questions and the answers are then fed into a computer that judges the priority of the call.
With extra first-aid training and kit on board, the firefighter said he and his colleagues feared it would lead to a ‘co-response’ culture.
A spokesman for the fire brigade confirmed that all Camden fire engines would be fitted with new first-aid equipment and said ambulance crews were going to provide extra training for fire staff.
The spokesman said: “In circumstances that may preclude early access for paramedics and where firefighters are the first emergency service on the scene, these new capabilities will increase the chances of survival for casualties.”
Fire Brigade Union president Mick Shaw said the service did not have a problem being equipped with defibrillators, but there were fears they would be asked to provide cover for the ambulance service.
He said: “We don’t mind having defibrillators – as long as we don’t get asked to cover ambulance calls. But we will be keeping a close eye to make sure we are not asked to work as extras for the ambulance service.”
A spokesman for the Ambulance Service said: “The call was categorised as being non life-threatening and an ambulance arrived on the scene 27 minutes later, by which time we understand that the child had been taken to hospital in a taxi.
“We’re sorry that we weren’t able to respond more quickly. |
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