Baby dies after paramedics take 40 minutes to arrive as mum screams ‘Why aren’t they f***ing answering’

A THREE-day-old baby girl has died after paramedics took 40 minutes to arrive at the scene.

The nearest ambulance was 24 miles away when Wyllow-Raine Swinburn’s mum, Amelia Pill, dialled 999 in the early hours of September 30 last year.

An inquest today was told how Ms Pill dialled 999 after trying to breastfeed her baby and noticing that her face was stone cold.

Little Wyllow-Raine was also not responding to her mum who was at this point holding on the phone to the emergency services – who were not answering.

The Oxfordshire coroner heard that it took seven minutes for the 999 call to be picked up by an operator.

Meanwhile she awoke her brother Luke by shouting: “Why are they not answering the f**king phone.”

The baby's grandmother, Anna Fisher, who was downstairs looking after the dogs when the incident happened, ran upstairs as desperate new-mum Amelia was crying out: “No-one is coming, no-one is coming”.

When the call was finally answered, an operator was put on loudspeaker and was telling the adults how to perform CPR.

Mrs Fisher said in a statement to the inquest in Oxford: “Amelia wanted to get to know the baby before naming her.

“At 4.36am I got a call when I was downstairs with the dogs from Amelia saying that Wyllow had stopped breathing.

“She was screaming ‘no-one is coming, no-one is coming’. I was up and down the stairs as Luke started doing CPR.”

The ambulance first responder on scene took 40 minutes to arrive.

In evidence to the inquest today paramedic Karen Silliborn-Aston told coroner Darren Salter that the first ambulance was at the family home in Blackthorn Road, Didcot, Oxon, at 5.09am.

They decided to take baby Wyllow to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where she arrived with a temperature of 30.8C.

A normal temperature for a human is 37C.

A post-mortem examination was undertaken which revealed nothing abnormal about Wyllow – including any very rare conditions.

As a result the paediatric pathologist, Dr Darren Farrell, determined her cause of death as sudden unexpected death in infancy, unexplained.

After her death, Oxford University NHS Foundation Trust launched an internal investigation, which found that Wyllow would have been in a prolonged period of cardiac arrest before the 999 call.

The overall outcome was not likely to be influenced by the time taken to answer the 999 call and the arrival of the ambulance.”

Ms Silliborn-Aston apologised for any “additional distress” to the family as a result of the time taken to answer the 999 call and for ambulances to arrive.

She said that the nearest vehicle for the South Central Ambulance Service had been 24 miles away at the time of the Category 1 call.

An emergency alarm was put out across the region to see if any other responders could make it there first - they could, however it still took 40 minutes.

The family’s lawyer asked the coroner to put the rest of the inquest on hold until more evidence was gathered that could be vital to the investigation.

He argued that Wyllow being born at 10 pounds and 5 ounces would put her in a range for having diabetes and that something could have been given to save her life.

The inquest was adjourned to a date to be set later.