A terrified mum battled to maintain her two-year-old alive on a harrowing journey to hospital after being advised there have been no ambulances obtainable.
With little Calli Milne turning blue, her mother and father Samantha and Stuart, each 36, feared she would die earlier than she acquired to hospital.
However the ambulance service advised them they didn't have a crew who might get to her and requested if anybody else might drive her to hospital.
With the closest accident and emergency an hour away by highway, the panic-stricken mother and father had no choice however to drive her themselves.
Calli suffers from the respiration situation croup, which may grow to be stridor – a situation which causes the voicebox to swell and restricts the airways.
When her situation will get actually unhealthy, Calli needs to be given pressing steroids at hospital or she might die from lack of oxygen.
Mum-of-three Samantha advised how she dialled 999 as Calli struggled for breath.
She mentioned: “She was making an attempt to talk however couldn’t get her phrases out. At one level she mentioned, ‘Mum, mum, Calli can’t breathe, Calli can’t breathe’.
“That was essentially the most horrendous half. Her face was the color of beetroot making an attempt to get a breath and her mouth and nostril had been going blue.
“After I phoned 999 it rang out for ages earlier than it was even picked up.
“After I finally did get by way of, the primary query they requested was if she was respiration. I mentioned, ‘Sure’ however that she was actually struggling.”
Samantha advised the telephone operator what had occurred after which the controller advised her: “I haven’t acquired an ambulance for you, there may be nothing obtainable to offer you. Do you've got a relative who might drive you?”
The household reside in Rhu, in Dunbartonshire, and the closest A&E is an hour’s drive away, in Glasgow.
So, they'd no alternative however to get Calli into the automobile and drive.
Samantha mentioned: “I needed to maintain her neck up as a result of she couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even get her within the automobile seat. I used to be holding her as
Stuart drove.
“I don’t know the way quick we had been going but it surely was removed from secure – we had been completely flying alongside that again highway. All we wished was to get Calli some assist however there might have been critical penalties.
“As we had been driving, she vomited however she didn’t have the puff or power to get her vomit up out her throat.
“I needed to put my fingers in her mouth and scoop out the vomit to attempt to clear her airway. By then we knew if we drove to Glasgow Calli wasn’t going to make it.
“It was solely one other 5 minutes to the native Vale of Leven Hospital, so though they didn’t have an A&E division I knew they might have tools which might preserve her alive so we determined to go there even when they turned us away.
“My little one was actually combating for her life in entrance of us.”
When the couple arrived on the hospital in Alexandria, employees took Calli in right away and administered steroids.
Inside two hours, the little lady had recovered sufficient to be allowed dwelling.
However Samantha’s native MSP, Labour’s well being spokeswoman Jackie Baillie, has demanded solutions over the household’s ordeal two weeks in the past.
Baillie mentioned: “That journey will need to have appeared like a nightmare.
“If a mom was making an attempt to cease her two-year-old from suffocating on her personal vomit it will need to have been the scariest factor.
"I can’t consider they had been dismissed on a telephone name.
"The necessity for an ambulance was self-evident to everyone together with her mother and father and the individuals who noticed her on the Vale.
“For somebody to principally inform mother and father they had been on their very own with a baby struggling to breathe is surprising.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Ambulance Service blamed a excessive quantity of calls that night for the “longer wait time for an ambulance for this affected person”.
She mentioned: ”Though we're restricted in what we are able to say as a consequence of affected person confidentiality, we suggested the affected person’s household that we had been extraordinarily busy and requested if they'd every other technique of travelling to A&E.
“At no level was an ambulance refused, and we suggested the caller to ring again instantly if there was any change within the affected person’s situation.”
A Scottish Authorities spokeswoman mentioned: “The pandemic has been the largest problem the NHS has confronted in its 73-year existence and has heaped stress on our ambulance service and wider NHS.”
Do not miss the newest information from round Scotland and past - Signal as much as our day by day e-newsletterright here.