Anger at 999 cash U-turn.Byline: BRENDON WILLIAMS MEAN ambulance chiefs yesterday withdrew a compensation offer to a badly-injured mum after she exposed their 999 cock-up. Ambulance bosses offered Carol Ferguson pounds 750 after they failed to send an ambulance to her home when she was two just minutes from bleeding to death. But they have withdrawn the meagre mea·ger also mea·gre adj. 1. Deficient in quantity, fullness, or extent; scanty. 2. Deficient in richness, fertility, or vigor; feeble: the meager soil of an eroded plain. 3. offer after the Welsh Mirror exposed their blunder yesterday. Ian Samuel, spokesman for the Welsh Ambulance Services The Welsh Ambulance Service (also called the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust or Ymddiriedolaeth GIG Gwasanaethau Ambiwlans Cymru) was established on April 1, 1998 and has 2,500 staff providing ambulance and related services to the 2.9 million residents of Wales. NHS Trust National Health Service Trusts (NHS Trusts) provide many services of the National Health Service in England and Wales. They are not trusts in the legal sense but are in effect public sector corporations. , said: "The pounds 750 payment was offered on the basis that the vehicle didn't arrive. "So as the family decided to go immediately to the Press and it was an ex-gratia payment we decided to withdraw payment until the family tell us what they want next." Carol, 59, was just minutes from bleeding to death after slashing slash·ing adj. 1. Bitingly critical or satiric: slashing wit. 2. Dashing; pelting: a slashing hailstorm. 3. open a main artery in her right arm on a ceramic pot. Her son James called the 999 operator. But more than six minutes later the ambulance still had not arrived - and the family were forced to take Carol to hospital in the back of a van. She needed a blood transfusion blood transfusion, transfer of blood from one person to another, or from one animal to another of the same species. Transfusions are performed to replace a substantial loss of blood and as supportive treatment in certain diseases and blood disorders. and was put on a life-support machine at Newport's Royal Gwent Hospital The Royal Gwent Hospital is the principal hospital in the city of Newport and the ancient county of Monmouthshire. It is located on Cardiff Road near the city centre. The buildings on the present site were opened on August 5 1901 on land donated by Godfrey Morgan, 1st Viscount . Carol, from Newport, Gwent, yesterday blasted the pounds 750 offer and said: "I'm going to sue them anyway. "My life is worth more than pounds 750. You don't make an offer unless you're at fault." Carol spent a month in hospital and still cannot use her fingers properly. Ambulance chiefs say the ambulance never arrived because the family decided to drive Carol themselves. But the family say she would have died if they had hung on any longer. She said: "If we had carried on waiting I would not be here I have lost all confidence in the emergency system." CAPTION(S): ANGER: Carol almost died from severe cut |
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