Injured Cork soccer player waited three hours for an ambulance

A Cork man has criticised the ambulance service after his son was left lying on the ground for three hours following a sporting injury.

The young man had been playing soccer at the Glen Resource Centre on Monday night, when he was injured.

He spent three hours lying on the wet football field, in pain, as his father was instructed not to move him, but, instead, to wait for the ambulance.

Injured

The father told The Echo his son was injured during a tackle, and the ambulance was rung at 7.10pm. They were told that it could take as long as two hours to arrive.

“I rang the ambulance again myself, when I got there, and told them he was freezing.”

“We had covered him in blankets but he was going in and out of consciousness just in total shock and we couldn’t do anything. They said it would be two hours and I asked could I move him and bring him to hospital myself because he was going to get hypothermia. I was told that I couldn’t move him.”

The man pointed out they were not far from the Kinsale roundabout ambulance headquarters, or from the hospitals, but said they rang the ambulance three times while they waited.

However, it was three hours before the ambulance arrived. 

Broken leg

The injured man was taken to hospital for an x-ray that found his leg was broken in three places. 

He was told he needed surgery but would have to wait until the swelling went down.

“They said he’s after damaging his muscles and ligaments from lying down for three hours, and he might have to stay in hospital over Christmas while he waits to get surgery now — he’s in fierce agony with the pain.”

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould told The Echo the family of the injured man contacted him after the incident. He said: “This highlights a huge shortage of paramedics at the moment."

"We’ve been saying for some time that the system is not working. The time people are waiting is too long, and it’s affecting people’s outcomes.

“To me, this is horrific — a person left on the cold, damp ground for three hours with their leg twisted is horrible — it’s simply not good enough.”

A spokesperson for the HSE said: “The HSE cannot comment on individual cases when to do so might reveal information in relation to identifiable individuals, breaching the ethical requirement on us to observe our duty of confidentiality.”