Father dies waiting for ambulance

Published date24 June 2022
The man’s family don’t know how long he was waiting for help to arrive, but were told his death was being referred to the Coroner due to the hours-long wait for the ambulance

The 73-year-old’s daughter-in-law, who wanted to only be referred to as Katrina, went on Newstalk ZB’s Wellington Mornings show, where she told host Nick Mills about how she and her husband were woken in the night by police a week-and-a-half ago.

“They told us that my father-in-law had passed away. They said that he had rung an ambulance for chest pains and when they got there he had died already,” she told Mills.

The man had gone to unlock his front door and was found dead in the doorway when paramedics arrived.

His son, who went to formally identify the body, was told the ambulance did not show up until six hours after he called for help.

The couple felt “absolute disbelief and anger” at the news.

Katrina hoped her father-in-law had died quickly, rather than having to wait, suffering, wondering when paramedics would turn up.

Her father-in- law was a “proud Tongan man that never really reached out for help”, so it would have taken a lot for him to call an ambulance...

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