Couple praise Blackpool folk who helped them through six hour-plus ambulance wait

Roy Wilson, 76, of Rhos-on-Sea, North Wales, had come to Blackpool with partner Pauline Hogan, 65, for a cycle ride along the seafront when he lost control of the bike and crashed near Starr Gate.

Roy, a former electrical engineer at John Moores University in Liverpool, was in agony on the ground and knew he had suffered a serious injury.

He had, in fact, fractured his hip in the fall.

Pauline, riding a little farther ahead, was oblivious to the incident and thought Roy might have stopped to look at something.

But then the first of many incidences of kindness occurred.

A complete stranger came to Roy’s aid and volunteered to phone Pauline to tell her what had happened.

Over the next few hours, during the agonising wait for the ambulance, a string of perfect strangers helped the couple in various ways.

The incident occurred last week, on Monday August 2, and Roy was waiting for the ambulance from 1.15pm until it finally arrived at 7.45pm.

The North West Ambulance service has apologised and said that at the time, it experienced "an extremely busy period".

Liverpudlian Pauline, who was already a fan of the resort and a regular visitor, said: “The people of Blackpool are like shining stars.

“We were desperately waiting for that ambulance and Roy’s temperature was getting lower and lower.

“I was worried he may suffer a stroke, and it was a very anxious time.

“He is fit for his age but he is nearly 77 years old and he took a heavy fall.

“So we were overwhelmed with the incredible kindness and patience of people who were prepared to help us.

“These weren’t acquaintances or people we vaguely knew, they were complete strangers who helped out purely from the kindness of their hearts.

“Roy and I would just like to thank each and every one of them.”

Among those shining stars was a man known only to the couple as Keith, who was also on a bike and saw Roy’s fall.

Extraordinarily, he stayed with Roy the entire time he was waiting for the ambulance, all six-and-a-half hours.

With Roy still on the ground, a man who identified himself as a Coastguard came to help with an ice pack for the wound and a thermal foil to keep him warm. Another man came along and offered a new bottle of water, while a woman called Shellie, who said she was a Rotarian, came to help as well.

Finally, a young woman called Rebecca and her husband waited for the ambulance to arrive, took the couple’s bikes to her house, close to where Roy and Pauline had parked on Balmoral Road, and came back to give Pauline a lift all the way to Lancaster, where the couple were staying.

Pauline went to pick the bikes up a couple of days later.

Roy was finally taken in the ambulance to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, where doctors confirmed he had fractured his hip.

Pauline added: “People knock Blackpool all the time and it makes me angry.

“There are good and bad people wherever you go.

“I have always found lots of lovely people in Blackpool and this just goes to prove it.

“Without them, I honestly don’t know what we would have done.”

The North West Ambulance Service has apologised for the amount of time it took to get an ambulance to stricken pensioner Roy Wilson.

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The ambulance service is currently under strain due to a number of factors associated with the ongoing Covid pandemic.

A spokesman for the ambulance service said in a statement to The Gazette: “We are sorry that Mr Wilson was waiting longer than he would have liked for help to arrive.

“We understand it can be an anxious and distressing time.

“However, we are experiencing an extremely busy period, and at the time, we had 68 active calls in Lancashire and Cumbria alone.

“As we prioritise the most life-threatening incidents first, this can mean less urgent patients are waiting longer than we would like.

“We wish Mr Wilson well and hope he makes a full and swift recovery.”

But Pauline said: “We have worked all our lives and it can’t be right that Roy had to wait more than six hours for an ambulance.

“He is nearly 77 years old, not a young man, and that is a very long time for us to wait.”

Last month, staff on the ground for the North West Ambulance Service, which has been on an ‘extreme pressure’ alert for more than five weeks, said they are starting to see coronavirus cases again, although in much more moderate numbers, as well as continuing high levels of respiratory problems in children and a sharp spike in mental health cases in patients who are ‘not being dealt with by the system’.

The system is said to be under unprecedented strain due to a combination of factors, including the Covid crisis and pre-existing issues.