Air ambulance could have attended County Durham collision which killed dad-of-five Aaron Morris, inquest told

An air ambulance could have responded to a collision which killed a dad-of-five, an inquest has heard.

Aaron Morris, 31, died on his wife Samantha's 28th birthday after his motorbike was involved in a collision with a car in Esh Winning, County Durham, on July 1, 2022. The couple had recently discovered that they were expecting twins and were looking forward to their future together.

But as Samantha travelled home from an overnight hospital stay to celebrate her birthday with Aaron, she became one of the first people on the scene of a collision, where she found her husband lying in the road.

His condition deteriorated in the 54 minutes before an ambulance arrived at the scene and he suffered a cardiac arrest en-route to the hospital, an inquest heard this week. He died at the University Hospital of North Durham that day.

As the inquest continued at County Durham and Darlington Coroner's Court on Tuesday, the court was told that there was a Great North Air Ambulance (GNAAS) available for dispatch to the scene and could have arrived in 26 minutes from the decision to dispatch. However, that call never came.

Paramedic Andrew Fyfe, who was called to the collision, admitted to the court that he should have called for the air ambulance, but was under the impression that they had refused to attend.

The inquest heard that he had been informed that the air ambulance was monitoring the incident at 1.08pm via radio but he did not recall this information being relayed to him. He told the hearing that he would have called for the air ambulance before arrival had he been aware.

Mr Fyfe, who has worked as a paramedic since 1995 and has worked in warzones, added that he was informed once at the scene that the air ambulance had refused to attend. Although it was unclear where that message had originated as GNAAS had not refused to attend the scene, the court heard.

A GNAAS call handler also attended the hearing to give evidence on her involvement in Aaron's case. She was working at the time of the collision and called an off-duty nurse at the scene for further information about Aaron's condition.

She said she was covering a colleague's lunch break when she noticed that a job had been on the system for some time. She said she was unable to listen back to the 999 call so contacted the off-duty nurse practitioner on scene for additional information, where she was told Aaron's airways, breathing and circulation (ABC) was "intact".

The court heard that the call handler asked if any further resources were needed and the call ended in the understanding that "one ambulance" should attend.

However, the off-duty nurse was not aware that she was speaking to GNAAS at the time as it was protocol for the charity to introduce themselves as the ambulance service when making calls to people at the scene of an incident. The court heard that protocol has now been changed as a result of this case.

Gordon Ingram, head of operations at GNAAS, told the inquest that he believed the call handler made "the best decision based on the information we had at the time, highlighting to the ambulance service that we were available if required."

"There were interventions that we would have been able to provide this patient that unfortunately we did not provide", he added.

The inquest continues.

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