Pensioner left lying in cold mud with broken ankle in three-hour wait for ambulance

A 65-year-old woman was left waiting for three hours by an overloaded ambulance service after breaking her ankle walking in the woods.

The woman, who did not want to be named, fell while walking with the Downs Walking For Health group on Clifton Down in Bristol.

She was spotted lying in the mud by friends who called an ambulance at around 11.45am yesterday.

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Fearing hypothermia given that the lady was lying in cold mud, friend Jill Ford says she called 999 at least three times while sheltering the woman from rain using an umbrella.

Ms Ford said: “She slipped in the mud and it looked like she broke her ankle. She was lying on the ground in a lot of pain and there was still no ambulance.

“She was in danger of getting hypothermia. It was wet and cold and she was in a very vulnerable position. She was shaking and we were trying to keep her warm.

“It is like being stranded on a mountain – it is as bad as that.

“It was cold, wet and was starting to get dark in the woodlands and we had no idea how much longer it was going to be.”

The ambulance arrived at around 2.30pm and took the woman to Southmead Hospital.

The South Western Ambulance Service explained that it had to “prioritise those in a life threatening time critical emergency situation.”

A spokesperson for the service said: “We only have a finite number of resources available to respond to the ongoing rise in demand for our service and we must prioritise those in a life-threatening, time-critical emergency situation.

“The Trust is handling almost 500 additional incidents every day than we were five years ago.”