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WIDOW’S WISH AFTER DELAY IN MERCY CALL
‘I don’t want it to happen again to anyone else’ By Alex Ballinger A WANTAGE woman whose husband died in her arms while waiting for help is to write to Prime Minister David Cameron about the state of emergency services in Oxfordshire. Pat Cornish’s husband Chris passed away from a ruptured stomach aneurysm last month when an ambulance took an hour to arrive at their home. Mrs Cornish has written letters of complaint to South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) and Thames Valley Police - and hopes to prevent anyone else enduring a similar ordeal. The 69-year-old said: “It was absolutely horrendous. After an hour, the ambulance arrived and I left my dead
husband in the arms of my neighbour to answer the door. “I said ‘My husband just died in my arms’ and the paramedic said ‘You’re joking’. I said ‘Do I look like I’m joking?’ “Then he said ‘Shall we go away and come back again?’”
After the paramedics tried unsuccessfully to revive Mr Cornish, they told his wife they had to wait for the police to arrive as the death was suspicious, but failed to explain that this was standard procedure in the case of unexpected deaths.
Mrs Cornish said the police came into her Stockham Park home unannounced and she only realised they had arrived when a neighbour said the officers were in the kitchen. Mrs Cornish was then interviewed by police at her home. She added:
“While they were questioning me I thought ‘They really think I killed him’. There was no explanation, there was no communication.” Mr Cornish, who was 73, was suffering from pain on September 3 and • Continues on page 3
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