The host of A Current Affair, Ally Langdon, has burst into tears while speaking to the sister of a mother who died while waiting for an ambulance.
Cath Groom was found dead on the morning of her 52nd birthday after going to bed with severe chest pain on Friday.
Her sister, Bec McQuilty, appeared on the current affairs program on Wednesday night to describe the nightmare 24 hours in which they went from watching Cath’s 18-year-old son Nicholas graduate high school to finding her dead.
“We now know that she got up to go to the bathroom but collapsed and died,” Langdon began before she welled up and stumbled over her words.
“It was her 52nd birthday, Bec... her only child... you and your mum raced over,” she said, before becoming overwhelmed with emotion.
Ms McQuilty said she received the phone call from Nicholas after he discovered his mother’s body on Saturday morning.
“It’s something that Nicholas and I will never forget what we had to see that day,” Ms McQuilty said.
She said she could hear the 18-year-old over the phone saying: “Nan, it’s mum... Please come, please hurry.”
She got into the car with her mother and they drove the 10 minutes to Cath’s house.
“The look on his face, I will never forget,” Ms McQuilty said.
“He didn’t want me going inside, that what he was saying was true but I had to go and make sure, if there was anything that I could do.”
Ms McQuilty said her mother was taken to hospital after suffering shock at the news of her daughter’s death.
Nicholas had called the ambulance for his mother on Friday night, and the emergency services prioritised the call as a code one – indicating an ambulance should arrive within 15 minutes.
Ninety minutes later and with no sign of the ambulance, she went to bed, still in pain, while Nicholas called triple-0 to cancel the ambulance.
The next morning he found her dead.
During Tuesday night’s program, Langdon grilled the Queensland Health Minister and Ambulance Commissioner over the incident, which she described as “not good enough”.
“What’s happened here with Cath is absolutely devastating – I’m devastated personally for her family, particularly her son,” Ms Fentiman said.
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“We have one of the busiest ambulance services in the country... we have some of the best response times, but unfortunately we did not get there in a quick and timely way for Cath and for that I am truly sorry.”
Queensland Ambulance Service Commissioner Craig Emery said the ambulance service “should have done better” and admitted “there are no excuses” for what happened.
A full review of the incident is being undertaken by the Queensland Ambulance Service with the help of Ms Groom’s family.
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