The death of a dad-of-five who had to wait almost an hour for a paramedic after a motorbike crash was contributed to by ambulance service neglect, a coroner has ruled.

Aaron Morris, 31, suffered a cardiac arrest in an ambulance which his wife Samantha was directing to hospital because the driver did not know the way, an inquest at Crook Coroners’ Court heard this week.

He died at the University Hospital of North Durham on July 1 2022 at 6.40pm, after the crash six hours earlier in Esh Winning.

During the inquest, coroner Crispin Oliver was told that it took 54 minutes for an ambulance to get to the scene because of high demand.

Read the full story from court HERE

An ambulance should have arrived 18 minutes after the first 999 call at 12.27pm, but did not arrive until 55 minutes later at 1.22pm, the inquest lasting all week has heard.

During the hearing, a series of timings were analysed by the coroner in a bid to understand whether Aaron could have survived had an ambulance reached him sooner.

Senior Assistant Coroner Crispin Oliver said on Friday (November 15): “It is highly likely that Aaron Morris would have survived had available specialist medical treatment been applied in a timely manner.”

Samantha and Aaron MorrisSamantha and Aaron Morris (Image: FAMILY)

He said this was down to “Delayed allocation of an ambulance to deploy to the scene due to overstretched resources [and] the failure of the ambulance service clinical team leader to deploy to the scene when there was certainly enough information for her to do so at 12.52.pm”

See how the series of delays panned out on the afternoon of July 1, 2022

12.24pm – Aaron is seen on CCTV riding on Newhouse Road in Esh Winning at 32.9mph with the front wheel of the bike in the air.

12.27pm – Aaron Morris is involved in a crash on his motorbike with a Vauxhall Crossland driven by Barry Chappell. Mr Chappell makes the first 999 call which is not answered for 98 seconds. It should have been answered in five. The call was categorised as category 2, meaning it should have been responded to in 18 minutes.

12.40pm – The North East Ambulance Service NEAS believes the case is serious enough to require a Clinical Team Leader (CRL) response. No CTL attended. One CTL, Sarah Hall, based at Stanely Ambulance Station could have been deployed but was in a meeting which she was not meant to be in. No one told her to leave the meeting to attend.

12.45pm – An ambulance could have been on the scene based on an 18-minute response time. In reality, it would not arrive until 1.22pm.

12.52pm – NEAS says there was “certainly enough information in the call log to result in a CTL resource being deployed”, but still a CTL did not attend.

12.57pm – Police arrive on the scene.

12.58pm – Great North Air Ambulance Service call handler Hollie Smith rang an off-duty police officer and off-duty nurse at the scene. The call hears CABCs – a vital medical indicator including checks on airways and circulation – were normal, and the air ambulance is not paged. The inquest heard the call did not extract as much information as possible.

1.00pm-1.03pm – Clinical Team Leader Sarah Hall would have arrived on the scene if she had been dispatched at 12.40pm.

1.04pm – Police control room indicated the air ambulance was available if requested and that GNAAS was monitoring the situation. A police officer at the scene is heard saying he wants the air ambulance but that it is not coming on the bodycam footage.

1.08pm – An ambulance from third-party provider Ambulnz is dispatched by the North East Ambulance Service. The crew is working out of the area and is not familiar with Durham. Information is conveyed to the ambulance that the air ambulance is monitoring the situation.

1.10pm-1.13pm – CTL should have arrived on the scene had she been dispatched at 12.52pm.

1.22pm - Ambulnz paramedics arrive at the scene. They are at Aaron’s side a minute later.

1.33pm – Aaron is put in the ambulance on a stretcher wearing an oxygen mask.

1.48pm – The Ambulnz ambulance departs the scene with Aaron, having decided to head to the RVI which is the nearest major trauma centre. Aaron’s wife Samantha is in the front with driver David Robinson.

1.52pm - Aaron Morris goes into cardiac arrest in the back of the ambulance and paramedic Andrew Fyfe alerts his driver in the front.

1.53pm - A decision is made to divert to University Hospital of North Durham. Driver David Robinson does not know the way there and Samantha has to direct him.

2.13pm - Aaron Morris arrives at the A&E at University Hospital North Durham.

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5.05pm – Doctors make a decision to stop treatment.

6.40pm - Aaron Morris is pronounced dead, leaving behind three children, a wife Samantha and their unborn twins.