Aaron Morris inquest: Ambulance driver didn't know where hospital was

Aaron Morris died at University Hospital North Durham at 6.40pm on July 1, 2022, hours after crashing with a car on the junction of Priestburn Close and Newhouse Road in Esh Winning, County Durham.

He had a 95 per cent chance of survival and an ambulance, which should have reached him in 18 minutes, a report said previously, took 54 minutes to arrive after a 999 call.

Crook Coroners’ Court heard today (November 11) there were numerous attempts to call 999 in that 54 minutes which did not connect, and an off-duty nurse who helped at the scene asked twice for Aaron to receive a category one ambulance response – the highest level of urgency – but paramedics still took too long to arrive.

The inquest heard that driver did not know how to get to University Hospital North Durham when Aaron went into cardiac arrest in the back of the ambulance and it had to re-route from the RVI in Newcastle.

Samantha, who was in the front of the ambulance, told the court: “The ambulance driver looked at me and said, ‘Where’s the nearest hospital from where we are now?’. I said, ‘I think it’s Durham’.

“As I told him it was Durham he then went okay and then took the wrong turn. I then realised he didn’t know where Durham hospital was. I told him to turn around and directed him.”

Samantha Morris with her and Aaron's twins Aaron-Junior John Robson Morris and Ambrose-Ayren Morris. (Image: Contributor) The crew from third-party firm Ambulnz could not operate the sat-nav system, a review by the North East Ambulance Service published in March 2023 said.

The inquest into Aaron’s death at Crook Coroners Court resumed on Monday after being postponed after just one day in May when new evidence came to light.

The Great North Air Ambulance Service was made an ‘interested person’ in the inquest with its role in delayed response times set to be considered, but the charity not at the reconvened hearing with the coroner saying it “cannot afford representation”.

Aaron was out on his off-road bike which he had picked up from a local garage when he collided with a Vauxhall Crossland driven by Barry Chappell which was pulling out of the junction, the court heard. Aaron tried to brake and came off his bike hitting the front drivers’ side of Vauxhall. His helmet came off in the crash.

PC Simon Edmundson, who arrived on the scene about 45 minutes after the crash, said feelings were “running high” when paramedics arrived after the delay.

“Everyone was a bit emotional about how long it had taken for them to come”, he said.

Aaron and Samantha Morris. (Image: Contributor)

The 31-year-old’s wife Samantha, who he married just 14 months earlier, was 13-weeks pregnant with twins at the time when she came across the crash on her birthday, on her way home from hospital.

“We had planned to go to the Lakes on the day because it was my birthday,” she told the court in May. “We would have been off to the Lakes and he wouldn’t have been on his bike – we planned to go straight after breakfast.

Recommended reading:

• Child abuser who forced kids to eat soap took his own life in Durham jail
• Warning as woman died after getting vitamin jab as coroner questions guidance
• Teens killed in Aycliffe moped crash after swerving into traffic without helmets

Get more from The Northern Echo with a digital subscription. Get access for two months for just £2, or get 30% off an annual subscription with our latest offer. Click here.

“I was on the way back from the hospital when I came across the accident.

“I came around the corner and saw an accident. I had worked at the hospital as a student nurse and wanted to ring him to say I was going to stop. I looked again and realised it was Aaron.”

The first day of the inquest in May heard from Mr Chappell who said he looked both ways twice and stopped for “up to 10 seconds” before pulling out, and did not see Aaron until he looked right again as he left the residential street.

The inquest continues.