Mum raced choking daughter to hospital as she 'turned grey' amid ambulance delay
A desperate mum was forced to drive her choking daughter to hospital in her slippers after she starting turning 'grey' - but no ambulances were available.
Angela Hood said she raced with nine-year-old Katie from their home in Great Barr to Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, on Saturday night (December 16), but "didn't know if she'd be alive by the time I got there".
The schoolgirl is non-verbal, has global developmental delay and relies on a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy [PEG] feeding tube as a result of an aggressive Medulloblastoma tumour when she was a toddler.
Full-time carer Angela, 48, said she parked up outside A&E next to the ambulances and rushed inside with Katie in her arms screaming "I need help, my daughter's not breathing!" She told the Mirror: "She could have died in that car. I think it’s disgusting that I had to wait two hours."
When she was two-and-a-half, Katie had been rushed into emergency surgery due to the cancerous tumour before spending eight months at Birmingham Children's Hospital as she underwent chemo, and is now in remission.
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"It’s so bad for her to go through all that and then nearly die in the back of my car because of funding cuts. I’m so angry because of what could have happened," said Angela.
According to the NHS, the skin turning grey or blue happens when there's not enough oxygen in your blood. Katie's temperature had been spiking to around 37.5C throughout the day before she suddenly took a turn for the worst.
Katie is non-verbal and has global developmental delay (Angela Hood)
Katie had an aggressive tumour as a toddler (Angela Hood)Due to her conditions, she is very susceptible to infections. Angela said: "I’ve never seen her look so ill. I was really scared. I rang 999 and said 'my daughter looks really bad. She’s shaking and gasping for air, I need an ambulance now'. They asked me a few questions.
"I thought 'is the ambulance on its way? Where’s the ambulance?' They said 'we’ve got really high demand at the moment. You’re going to have to wait two hours. Is there anyway you can bring her up yourself?' I said, 'well no, it’s an emergency, she can’t breathe'."
Angela continued: "I had to take her up. I didn’t have chance to do anything, I just put my slippers on and put her in the car. She was still choking. I managed to put some Piriton into her tube. I thought if it is an allergic reaction it could save her life.
Angela said she feared Katie would be dead by the time she reached the hospital (Angela Hood)"I drove, it took about 10 or 15 minutes. I did try and drive fast but obviously safe. I could hear her choking in the back. It was so horrific because I didn’t know if she’d be alive by the time I got there."
Once in A&E, Angela said doctors lay Katie on her side and it helped ease her breathing and her colour eventually started to return. She explained: "Because she’s got an unsafe swallow because of the PEG, she was choking on her own saliva because she wasn’t swallowing. They laid her down and it seemed to help.
"They put the stats monitors on her. It was terrifying. The doctor came in and said she’d got a chest infection which caused the high temperature. That’s the reason she was choking, she couldn’t swallow her own spit. She could have died in that car."
Katie with twin brother Jake before her tumour (Angela Hood)Katie had experienced rigor - a sudden feeling of cold with shivering accompanied by a rise in temperature, often with copious sweating, especially at the onset or height of a fever.
She was monitored overnight before being allowed to return home the following day with antibiotics. Angela said: "I feel sorry for the NHS crews, the nurses, the doctors, because they are all amazing. It’s not them, it’s funding. They are fantastic. They are not being supported enough.
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"Katie could have died in a car because of government funding and I do blame the government - who else are you going to blame? There’s no excuse, it’s getting brushed under the carpet - we’re just numbers now, people are dying and suffering and they are carrying on as if nothing is happening. I don’t understand. They are just letting it burn, watching burn."
Referring to last Saturday, a spokesperson for West Midlands Ambulance Service said: “Unfortunately, due to long hand over delays at hospitals, the Trust was under significant pressure. We rely on each part of the health and social care system working together so that our ambulances can get to patients in the community quickly. If our crews are left caring for patients outside hospital, they are not available to respond to the next call as quickly as we would all want.
Katie had suffered a spike in temperature due to a chest infection (Angela Hood)
Katie is cared for full-time by mum Angela (Angela Hood)“During her call, Ms Hood was advised that if it was possible to take the patient to hospital herself it would be advisable as it could be ‘several’ hours before we were able to respond. She confirmed she understood the advice and at the end of the call told the call assessor that she would take her daughter to hospital herself. At that point the case was closed.
“We took the very difficult decision to let people know how long it might be before an ambulance was available based on feedback from serious incidents, patient feedback and comment from groups such as Healthwatch. Sadly, we have seen some very long delays responding to patients due to the hospital handover delays. Families involved in these cases have repeatedly asked us why we didn’t share this information, so it was the right decision to introduce this new script at times of particular pressure.”
They added that the call was received at 8.53pm and was triaged as a Category 2, the second highest, with the aim to get to half of such calls in 30 minutes. However, on the day in question, the service had lost 582 hours of ambulance time due to delays. This is equivalent of taking over 48 ambulances off the streets.
The Mirror has also contacted the Department of Health and Social Care for comment.
Angela has launched a petition calling for an improvement to ambulance waiting times - click here for more.
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