Woman's five-hour wait ends in death

A doctor called to treat housewife Mandy Gray, 38, at her home in Thames Road, Redcar, Teesside, arranged for the non-emergency vehicle to take her for x-rays and blood tests at Middlesbrough General Hospital, 15 miles away.

She had been feeling tired and unwell, and had lost weight, thought to be due to a combination of chest and pelvic infections.

Mrs Gray had enjoyed Christmas and Boxing Day with husband Neil, 31, and her children from a previous marriage, Wayne 15, Kyle, 13 and eight-year-old Rochelle.

But two days later the family GP was called in as her condition worsened.

He called the ambulance at 6pm but by 11pm it had still not arrived.

At 11pm Mrs Gray appeared to have a fit and Mr Gray called 999 and an ambulance arrived within ten minutes.

However, as Mr Gray travelled with his wife to Middlesbrough General her heart stopped and efforts to revive her failed.

The family was later told that complications caused by the infections, linked to a problem with Mrs Gray's colon, had contributed to her death.

Her grief-stricken father, 67-year-old retired steelworker Dennis Williams, said: "We just want answers as to why the ambulance never turned up. If an emergency ambulance could get there in ten minutes then why did it take another over five hours - and never came.

"What is going wrong with the ambulance service?"

A spokesman for the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Trust confirmed an inquiry had been launched.

He said: "At this stage we just do not know what happened. The workload was exceptionally high that night and the weather conditions were terrible, with snow blizzards.

"However, a non-emergency ambulance should arrive within two hours and this has not happened. We do not know why, at this stage, an emergency ambulance arrived but not the vehicle first requested.

"We send our deepest sympathies to the family and, once we have all the answers and our investigation is concluded we will be consulting with them.