A WOMAN with an injured ankle lay in an Uxbridge street for more than two hours waiting for an ambulance.
Karen Conway slipped and fell while crossing Bakers Road, Uxbridge, on the way back to work after her lunch break on Monday.
The 47-year-old who lives in Ruislip but preferred not to give her full address, works at JobCentre Plus just a few yards from where she took a tumble on the pedestrian refuge at the entrance to Uxbridge bus station.
She fell shortly after 1pm but at 3.45pm, Ms Conway, who has Multiple Sclerosis, was still there, wrapped in a silver foil blanket provided by a Police Community Support Officer and being comforted by passers-by and her colleagues as she lay prone in the roadway, her head on a couple of pillows.
Shielded from traffic by the PCSO’s pushbike and a moped someone had parked in one of the exit lanes in Bakers Road, buses and cars continued to pass by just feet from her.
Despite several calls to London Ambulance Service, no ambulance crew or paramedic attended during the approximately two hours and 30 minutes that Ms Conway lay on the ground.
The Gazette was able to have a snatched conversation with her. “I just fell, just went ‘bang’,” she said.
“Some lovely people stopped.”
Ms Conway was propped on cushions and sipping a cup of tea when a St John Ambulance using blue lights arrived on the scene at 3.45pm.
In a statement, London Ambulance Service said: “We can confirm that we were called at 1.14pm on March 31 to Belmont Road to reports of a patient who had fallen.
“Unfortunately, we were unable to send an ambulance as quickly as we would have liked and we are sorry for this delay.
“From the information provided we established that the patient was conscious and breathing, although an ambulance crew was dispatched they were diverted to what was believed to be a higher priority call.
“If the patient would like more information, we would invite them to contact our patient experiences department on 020 3069 0240.”
