An Oxford family was forced to perform CPR on a dying baby in a desperate bid to save his life because an ambulance took more than 30 minutes to arrive, an inquest will hear.
Wyllow-Raine Swinburn, just three days old, was pronounced dead five minutes after arriving at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital in the early hours of September 30 last year.
Her mother, Amelia Pill, had called an ambulance when she noticed that her daughter was “stone cold.”
But it took seven minutes for an operator to connect the call to the ambulance service and another 24 minutes before paramedics arrived.
At a previous inquest Ms Pill was heard shouting: “no one’s coming, no one’s coming…why aren’t you answering the fucking phone?”, as she sat on hold.
Wyllow-Raine Swinburn was pronounced dead five minutes after arriving at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital in the early hours of September 30 last year, an earlier hearing was told.
Ms. Pill’s brother attempted to perform CPR on the baby and recalled noticing a disturbing change in her skin, “like when you have a bruise,” according to a previous investigation.
While a pathologist considered the death “probably due to natural causes”, lawyers representing the family argued that Wyllow-Raine may have had early signs of diabetes.
Senior coroner Darren Salter adjourned an earlier inquest in June to allow more evidence to be gathered.
An initial hearing for the second part of the inquest will take place today at Oxford Coroner’s Court.
Wyllow-Raine was born weighing 10 pounds, five ounces via cesarean section on September 27, 2022.
She and her mother were discharged on the night of September 29. The baby collapsed in the early hours of September 30.
Amelia Pill called an ambulance at 4.38am after trying to breastfeed her baby and noticing his face was stone cold.
Karen Sillicorn-Aston, clinical management lead for South Central Ambulance Service, told the court the 999 call was made at 4.38am and was connected five minutes later.
It was connected by a BT operator whose job is to listen to all calls before they are answered.
His family spent 40 minutes giving him CPR while they waited for paramedics at their home, Oxford Coroner’s Court was told in 2023.
Sillicorn-Aston said the rules state that the BT operator must pass the call to another service, which in this case was the East of England Ambulance Service.
The family stayed on the line for two more minutes before the call was taken.
The nearest ambulance was sent, which was 20 to 25 minutes away, but then a closer one was found and sent instead.
However, an ambulance did not arrive at the family home until 5:09 in the morning, more than 30 minutes after the call was made.
By the time the ambulance arrived, the baby’s body temperature had dropped to 30.8C despite the ambient temperature being normal before he collapsed, the hearing was told.
Wyllow-Raine was taken to John Radcliffe Hospital, where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.
Pathologist Dr Darren Fowler told the hearing it was “more likely” the cause of the baby’s death had been natural.
However, he said he was not the most qualified person to answer questions about whether he would have survived if an ambulance had arrived sooner.
At the previous hearing it was said that the baby appeared to be healthy when he was discharged from the hospital, but the family’s lawyers expressed concern that he may have had diabetes that had gone unnoticed by doctors, since the records of the ambulance revealed that he had a “very low” blood glucose level. levels.
The newborn’s grandmother told the hearing that the baby was crying with fever when he was put to bed at the family home in Didcot, Oxfordshire, around midnight.
The full investigation must resume on December 2 and 3, 2024.
