Ambulances delayed by health and safety rules

AMBULANCES were held back from attending some of the dead and injured in the Cumbrian shooting rampage because of health and safety law, an inquest heard yesterday. There were also problems with police and ambulance chiefs unable to communicate properly and the mobile phone network "crashing".

A total of 13 ambulances, three helicopters and four rapid-response cars were scrambled but some were held back for fear gunman Derrick Bird was still on the loose.

This meant some crews from the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) did not arrive at the scene of a shooting for nearly two hours after they were first called, and by then injured victims had been rushed to hospital by police.

Peter Mulcahy, the head of NWAS for the Cumbria region, said the health and safety of paramedics was "paramount".

He told the inquest into the deaths of the victims, at the Energus centre in Workington, that it would be "wholly inappropriate and unreasonable" to send unarmed and unprotected staff into an area where a gunman was on the rampage.

Police and the ambulance services also used different wavelengths on their radios so had difficulty communicating - a system that is now being replaced so all 999 services will eventually use the same wavelength, the inquest heard.

Taxi driver Bird, 52, left 12 people dead before turning a gun on himself to end the rampage on 2 June, last year.

The inquest heard none of the fatalities would have survived in any event.

Christine Hunter-Hall was blasted by Bird in the village of Wilton and her husband Stephen called an ambulance at 11:11am but an air ambulance did not arrive until 1:09pm, by which time a police car has been commandeered.