An Oxford family were forced to resuscitate a dying baby in a desperate bid to save her life as it took more than 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, an inquest will hear.
Wyllow-Raine Swinburn, aged just three days, was pronounced dead five minutes after arriving at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in the early hours of September 30 last year.
Her mother, Amelia Pill, had called an ambulance after noticing her daughter was ‘stone cold’.
But it took seven minutes for an operator to transfer the call to the ambulance service, and another 24 minutes for paramedics to arrive.
At a previous inquest I heard that Mrs Pill shouted: ‘Nobody’s coming, nobody’s coming… why don’t they answer the bloody phone’ as she was on hold.
Wyllow-Raine Swinburn was pronounced dead five minutes after arriving at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in the early hours of September 30 last year, an earlier hearing was told.
Ms. Pill’s brother tried to resuscitate the child and recalled noticing a disturbing change in her skin, “like when you get a bruise,” an earlier investigation found.
While a pathologist ruled that the death was “likely to be due to natural causes,” lawyers representing the family argued that Wyllow-Raine may have had the early signs of diabetes.
Senior coroner Darren Salter postponed a previous inquest in June to allow further evidence to be gathered.
An initial hearing for the second part of the inquest will take place today at Oxford Coroners Court.
Wyllow-Raine was born via C-section on September 27, 2022, weighing 10 pounds and five ounces.
She and her mother were discharged on the evening of September 29. The baby collapsed in the early hours of September 30.
Amelia Pill called an ambulance at 4.38am after trying to breastfeed her baby and noticing her face was stone cold.
Karen Sillicorn-Aston, head of clinical governance at South Central Ambulance Service, told the court the 999 call was made at 4.38am and was transferred five minutes later.
It was connected by a BT operator whose job is to listen to all calls before answering them.
Her family spent 40 minutes resuscitating her as they waited for paramedics at their home, Oxford Coroners Court was told in 2023
Sillicorn-Aston said the rules state that the BT operator must pass the call on to another service, in this case the East of England Ambulance Service.
The family stayed on the line for another two minutes before the call was answered.
The nearest ambulance, which was 20 to 25 minutes away, was dispatched, but a nearest ambulance was later found and sent instead.
However, an ambulance did not arrive at the family home until 5.09am, more than 30 minutes after the call was made.
By the time the ambulance arrived, the baby’s body temperature had dropped to 30.8 degrees Celsius, despite the room temperature being normal before she collapsed, the hearing was told.
Wyllow-Raine was taken to John Radcliffe Hospital where she was pronounced dead shortly after her arrival.
Pathologist Dr Darren Fowler told the hearing that the baby’s cause of death was “more likely than not” natural.
However, he said he was not the most qualified person to answer questions about whether she would have survived if an ambulance had arrived sooner.
The previous hearing was told that the baby appeared healthy when discharged from hospital, but family lawyers raised concerns that she may have had diabetes that had gone unnoticed by doctors, as ambulance service records showed that she had ‘very low’ blood glucose. levels.
The newborn’s grandmother told the hearing that the baby was crying with a fever when she was put to bed at the family home in Didcot, Oxfordshire, around midnight.
The full investigation will resume on December 2 and 3, 2024.