A 999 call made by a mother who was later found dead along with her “entirely dependent” daughter led to no ambulance being sent despite the call handler being given their address and postcode, an inquest has heard.
Nottingham Coroner’s Court was told Alphonsine Djiako Leuga, 47, suffered from sickle cell anaemia and died from pneumonia, while her 18-year-old daughter Loraine Choulla had learning difficulties and Down’s syndrome and relied on her mother for food and hydration.
The hearing was told that during the call, made shortly after 1pm on February 2 last year, Ms Leuga groaned, requested an ambulance and said “I need help to my daughter” and “I’m in the bed, I feel cold and can’t move” before cutting off the line. She also gave details of her address in Hartley Road, Radford, Nottingham, where her body and that of her daughter were found on May 21 last year.
Giving evidence, East Midlands Ambulance Service’s head of patient safety, Susan Jevons, said the call handler should have referred the call to despatch officers. She told the inquest: “The ambulance didn’t go to the address because the emergency medical adviser, thinking it was an abandoned call, closed the call down. So it wasn’t visible to anybody within the emergency operations centre.”
The coroner told Ms Jevons she would have to consider the possibility that sending an ambulance “might have been the difference between life or death” for Loraine. Ms Jevons responded: “Yes, there was a missed opportunity for an ambulance to attend Alphonsine when she requested one.”
Earlier, pathologist Dr Stuart Hamilton told the hearing that the mother and daughter were both likely to have been dead for “weeks to months” before they were found. He said his initial cause of death for Ms Leuga was pneumonia, while her daughter’s cause of death could not be established. The inquest continues.
