Bradford man died of cardiac arrest after ambulance delay

A man died after waiting 47 minutes at his Bradford home for an ambulance after a heart attack.

Paul Dawson, 62, fell ill in the early hours of 3 April this year. His wife called 999 four times before paramedics arrived, by which time he was in cardiac arrest.

Mr Dawson's wife Rita, 72, found him collapsed in the hallway with chest pains after hearing him cry out.

She first called 999 at 1:09am, according to the ambulance service's records. As her husband's condition deteriorated, she made further calls while attempting to administer CPR, before paramedics arrived at 1:56am.

Mr Dawson, a retired refuse worker, was taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary but was pronounced dead at the hospital that morning. His family later learned he had been living with undiagnosed heart disease.

NHS England says paramedics should reach patients who are having a heart attack within 18 minutes of an emergency call. For patients in cardiac arrest, the target response time is seven minutes.

Their daughter Samantha Dawson, 30, who lives in Vancouver, Canada, said she believed her father could still be alive if the response had been quicker.

She said it was "excruciating" knowing her father "probably could have been saved" if paramedics had reached him sooner.

Ms Dawson, who has lodged a formal complaint, told the BBC: "It's just so painful to just carry on living knowing there's a chance it could have been avoided. There's a chance I could have spoken to him for the last time."

"I can't change anything for my dad, there's nothing we can do about it. But I think it's just important to stop it happening to anybody else. I don't understand why my mum had to call four times."

Ms Dawson believes her mother's initial 999 call should have been logged as a category one call for a patient facing an immediate threat to life. Instead, it was logged as category two, meaning an emergency.

Ms Dawson said her father was "the kindest person" and "a community guy" who had grown up in Bradford and was "proud" of the area.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) has opened a serious incident investigation into Mr Dawson's death.

A spokesperson for YAS said: "We are aware of the concerns raised by Paul's family about the ambulance response, and our patient relations team is liaising directly with them about specific details relating to this."

Earlier this year, a coroner said neglect by YAS had contributed to the death of a Sheffield man, Mark Taylor, who waited 58 minutes for an ambulance after a heart attack.