A baby has choked to death. Picture: Thinkstock Source: News Limited
AN EMERGENCY operator complained 'Jeez, stop giving me information' after taking a call about a baby who was choking on a shepherd's pie, a UK inquest has heard.
Aaliyah Ormerod was recorded making the comment as she ended the call from a private day nursery where Millie Thompson had got into breathing difficulties and was turning purple.
By the time an ambulance arrived 10 minutes later, the nine-month-old had gone into cardiac arrest and medics were unable to save her.
On Thursday, Millie's mother Joanne asked the inquest jury to find out how her "perfectly healthy" daughter had died.
Yesterday, the call handler admitted to the inquest that she failed to appreciate how serious the emergency was.
Despite what the coroner branded the operator's "complete aberration", the hearing was told she is still working for North West Ambulance Service and has not faced disciplinary action.
Millie was eating the meal during her third day at Ramillies Hall private nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester, last October when she started coughing.
Staff telephoned emergency and were put through to Ms Ormerod. They told her Millie was still breathing but was going "a bit purple". The handler asked a series of scripted questions. She advised that the baby should not eat or drink anything else and be rested on her side in case she vomited, ending the call by asking the nursery to ring back immediately if anything changed.
The call was played to the jury at Oldham coroner's court yesterday including Ms Ormerod's comment after ending the call: "Jeez, stop giving me information."
She was excused attending the hearing on medical grounds, but in a statement read to the jury admitted two "fundamental" errors.
She said: "When told the patient was going purple, I did not click this indicated breathing problems."
She said this should have generated an immediate response and not a continuation of the scripts that she was following. She went on: "I should have stayed on the line to monitor the patient's breathing and not exit the call".
Explaining that she had suffered a stillbirth herself, she said the thought that her actions could have contributed to Millie's death "has devastated me".
Angela Lee, section manager in the emergency control room, said Ms Ormerod had not followed her training and that terms such as "purple", "blue" or "gasping for breath" should be "trigger for an immediate red response before any more questions are asked".
However, she said an ambulance did arrive within 10 minutes and that in practice the errors led to a delay of only a minute or two.
Less than an hour later, Millie was pronounced dead at Stepping Hill Hospital. The hearing continues next week.
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