TEN years after the death of her son Ben, former Darley resident Carole Hickman fears local ambulance services have not improved.
On September 15 it will have been a decade since Ms Hickman found her 10-year-old son with a nylon cord wrapped around his neck. The first of two ambulances took 25 minutes to arrive at the family’s property.
Ben was flown to the Royal Children’s Hospital, where he died the next day.
Following a 2004 inquest, Ms Hickman said she had no confidence that ambulance response times would improve, and her opinion hasn’t changed.
While the inquest found the ambulance delay could not be deemed responsible for Ben’s death, Ms Hickman said he “deserved a better chance of survival”.
“Even nearly 10 years on, it is still very difficult for us all. We lost a vibrant, intelligent, brilliant little boy,” she said.
“I’m very saddened that the ambo service has worsened since Ben’s passing because I worked so hard to improve that.
“We don’t have enough paramedics trained and operating the stations and that’s due to so many stations being manned.”
Last month the Weekly reported that Bacchus Marsh was often left without a local ambulance crew for hours.
