GAZETTE & HERALD: THE acting head of Wiltshire Ambulance Service, Tim Skelton, has admitted that mistakes led to an unconscious woman laying undiscovered in a car following a road crash, but has defended the service's use of volunteer emergency personnel.

Two weeks after Wiltshire Police apologised for its part in failing to locate the woman, Mr Skelton published the results of the ambulance service's investigation and admitted that the military First Response team that attended the scene, should have searched the car.

The woman had been in the back of a Renault Clio which collided with an unattended Land Rover in Abberd Way, Calne, on February 7.

The Clio driver, Lisa Michelle Hartley, 33, was arrested at the scene and later fined and banned by magistrates for drink-driving.

But the woman in the back of the car was not discovered until it was towed to D&C Fry breakdown compound in Kington Langley. Startled workers called an ambulance after seeing the woman's hand through a rear window.

It is believed she had been wedged in a narrow footwell behind the passenger seat and had been covered with dark clothes. The woman was subsequently taken to the Great Western Hospital, Swindon, and released 11 days later.

But while Mr Skelton admitted the First Responders were wrong not to search the car, he defended the ambulance service's use of the military volunteers and said the mistake may still have been made even if a full-time ambulance crew had attended.

"All staff responding to road traffic accidents should thoroughly search vehicles," he said.

"In this case, the driver said there was no-one in the car, but the First Responders should not have taken this for the gospel truth."

Mr Skelton said First Responders were trained to deal with road accidents. "The fact that this happened had nothing to do with their training and I cannot speak highly enough for them, they do an excellent job," he said.

He acknowledged that the First Responders told a full-time ambulance crew that attended the scene to stand-down, which had gone against procedure.

Mr Skelton's comments angered one full-time ambulance technician.

The man, who did not want to be named, said: "I totally disagree with Mr Skelton's comments.

"For one, if an ambulance had attended, the driver would have been trained to thoroughly check the car.

"Secondly, First Responders get half the training we get and many do a full day's work before going on duty. A lot of us are angry and feel cheated that people with little more than a first aid certificate are being able to come in and represent the service."