Crash victim is found at depot (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Crash victim is found at depot

CHIPPENHAM NEWS EXCLUSIVE: AN investigation has been launched after 999 crews missed an unconscious crash victim found when the accident wreckage had been towed to a car compound.

The woman, who has not been named, was a passenger in a car involved in a two-vehicle smash at Abberd Way, Calne in the early hours of February 7.

Police and a First Response team sent by the ambulance service attended the scene and the female driver was arrested after failing a breath test, but no-one checked inside the car for passengers.

The woman was not found until over an hour later after the car was taken to the compound of recovery firm D & C Fry in Kington Langley.

A spokesman for the firm said: "We went to unload the vehicle and once we had unloaded it we noticed a hand and realised there was still somebody trapped in there.

"It was frightening really and it would have been a lot more frightening if we hadn't looked in there until Monday."

Staff called emergency services and the fire brigade took an hour to cut the woman free from the wreckage. She was then taken to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon where she was treated for injuries to her arm.

A police spokesman confirmed officers attended the incident and said there will be an internal investigation into procedures.

A member of the ambulance service, who asked to remain anonymous, said the Colerne-based First Response team, who have a minimum of just five days first aid training, should never have been sent to the incident. He said: "I would like to say it surprises me but it doesn't."

First Response is a national charity launched two years ago. Teams of volunteers attend medical emergencies when they can get to the victim faster than an ambulance. They are not paramedics and are sent to stabilise casualties until an ambulance crew arrives to take over. It is thought in this case the response team stood down an ambulance called to the accident, something ambulance service workers say they are never supposed to do.

The worker said: "I don't think they should be allowed out at all. I think resources should be put back into the ambulance service.

"I can understand why the service do it because they have response times to meet but they should be meeting them with professionals not amateurs they give blue lights to. We lost direction years ago. It is not about patients any more it is about response times."

This incident has come to light in the same week that an internal Wiltshire Ambulance Service document leaked to the Chippenham News has raised fears that the need to meet Government response targets could cost lives.

The System Status Plan ranks locations according to importance, stationing more ambulances in towns at the expense of rural areas.

One paramedic said: "There is no patient care in the thinking behind all of this.

"It's all to do with meeting Government targets and the trust has said the best way to do this is to concentrate the cover on the big urban areas."

Wiltshire's acting ambulance chief Tim Skelton said the service was taking a number of steps to improve response times.

He said: "We are investing in a range of new schemes to provide extra cover particularly in rural areas where sometimes it is difficult to meet response times. These schemes include working with St John Ambulance and military personnel to provide responders."

No-one from First Response was available to comment on the crash.

Mr Skelton said: "The trust is carrying out an internal investigation and has also written to the woman expressing regret and reassuring her that the outcome of our investigation will be available to her. The Trust will also be sharing the findings of the investigation with the police to ensure that if there are lessons to be learnt, we take them on board."