A paramedic has admitted he should have called for air ambulance support at the scene of a crash which killed a dad-of-five but thought they had refused to come, an inquest has heard.

Aaron Morris, 31, died at the University Hospital North Durham at 6.40pm on July 1, 2022, about six hours after his motorbike crashed with a car on the junction of Priestburn Close and Newhouse Road in Esh Winning.

His wife Samantha, who was 13-weeks pregnant with twins, stumbled across the crash on the way home from hospital on her birthday and had to direct an ambulance driver to the nearest hospital because he didn’t know how to get there, an inquest has heard.

The hearing into Aaron’s death is taking place this week. He was out on his off-road bike which he had picked up from a local garage when he collided with a Vauxhall Crossland pulling out of a junction. Aaron tried to brake and came off his bike hitting the front driver’s side of Vauxhall. He died without meeting his unborn twins.

Crook Coroners' Court was told today (November 12) that a paramedic who attended believed the air ambulance had refused to come.

An inquest is taking place at Crook Coroners' Court.An inquest is taking place at Crook Coroners' Court. But the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) had not refused to attend, and was monitoring the situation to attend if new information came to light, the court was told.

The air ambulance could have been at Aaron’s side in 26 minutes providing treatment from lift-off had they been called.

Andrew Fyfe, a paramedic since 1995 who has worked in warzones, told the court he did not ask for the GNAAS to attend – a move described as “not [falling] into best practice” by his own employer - third-party ambulance provider Ambulnz - in a review.

The court heard he had been told via radio comms at 1.08pm that the air ambulance was monitoring the incident but he could not remember being told this.

Had he received or understood it he said he would have called for the helicopter before he even arrived, he told the court. Mr Fyfe agreed he should have called for them on arrival about 15 minutes later. It was 54 minutes after the initial 999 call.

At the scene, the paramedic was told the air ambulance had refused to attend, but it is unclear where this had come from, Senior Assistant Crispin Oliver said, suggesting there may have been an element of “Chinese whispers” to people hearing it would not be coming.

A GNAAS call handler was questioned over her decision not to immediately ask the helicopter to attend after speaking to a nurse on scene.

Aaron and Samantha on their wedding day.Aaron and Samantha on their wedding day. Head of Operations at the charity Gordon Ingram said: “I believe [the call handler] made the best decision with the information she had at the time, highlighting to the ambulance service that we were available if required.

“There were interventions that we would have been able to provide this patient that unfortunately we did not provide.”

The court heard a review by Ambulanz said that “the omission of the paramedic to request HEMS […] did not call into best practice”.

The inquest also heard from ambulance driver David Robinson, who had to ask Samantha Morris for directions to University Hospital North Durham as he didn’t know how to get there.

Mr Robinson, who said he usually works north of the Tyne and did not know the area, said: “I seem to recall asking her (Samantha) if it was far from where we were because I wasn’t familiar with the area.

“At that point Samantha offered to direct me. We were heading towards the RVI so Durham Hospital was in the opposite direction. We had to turn the ambulance around and Samantha did a fantastic job directing me until the police escort arrived.”

Mr Robinson could not operate the sat-nav system, a review by the North East Ambulance Service published in March 2023 said. He told the court on Tuesday he was subsequently trained on how to re-programme it.

Samantha and Aaron had been due to go on a birthday trip to the lakes that day.

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“We would have been off to the lakes and he wouldn’t have been on his bike – we planned to go straight after breakfast”, she told the court in May, but had been in hospital so the trip was delayed.

“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.