A woman had to wait over 5 hours for an ambulance after breaking her ankle on Tennyson Down yesterday afternoon (Monday), eventually being rescued by HM Coastguard.
Coastguard Officers from The Needles and Ventnor were tasked at 18:06 to locate and assistant a female casualty who had suffered a suspected broken ankle whilst out walking on Tennyson Down near Freshwater in the West Wight.
It didn’t take long for the casualty to be located on a steep muddy path, where she had been ‘for some time’. Island Echo is told that the woman had been in-situ on the cold ground for around 5 hours with temperatures plummeting as darkness fell.
Once stabilised and packaged, the casualty was recovered by a simple rope system to the top of the Down before a lengthy stretcher carry down to the main road to meet the Isle of Wight Ambulance Service.
Coastguard Rescue Teams were stood down from the incident by 20:30.
UPDATE WEDNESDAY – The Isle of Wight Ambulance Service has apologised for the delay in responding to the injured woman.
Victoria White, Head of Ambulance Service at Isle of Wight NHS Trust, has said:
“We want to extend our sincere apologies for the delay in responding to this patient. During this unprecedented time the ambulance service is very stretched and throughout this particular day we were responding to a higher than normal number of emergency calls and were unable to attend all call outs within a time we would want.
Article continues below this advertisement “We apologise to the person concerned and wish them a speedy recovery.
“We continue to urge those needing medical assistance to call NHS 111 first and if it is a serious injury or life-threatening incident please call 999.”
I trust the lady is fine, and lives locally (and i dont mean airbnb).
Thank God she was still alive in bitterly cold conditions. Her home ‘location’ is irrelevant, anyone even a local could have an accident, anywhere, anytime.
What was she doing on Tennyson Down so close to dark. And is she local to the area. Also the ambulance service has more than enough problems with covid and other ill people without having to go to the rescue of totally irresponsible people like her
Five hours could have meant she was walking at 1 o’clock, so a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
The N H S seem to have plenty of cash for those sat answering the phone for those worried, yet can’t help those with physical issues. Priority seems wrong, as real pain, injury and illness still needs rapid attention to prevent metal angst.
Coast guard stood down at 8.30 pm so if it was five hours that makes it 3.30pm at the earliest. Suggest you read the full article
I was out in the country yesterday at 3.30, AND perfectly daylight.
Suggest YOU use your eyesight and check when it is dark on a bright day as yesterday was.
Wasn’t light at 5pm when she was waiting to be rescued or 8pm when she was getting put in an ambulance
Since when is it dark at 1pm? when the accident happened it was broad daylight.
Engage brain before using keyboard.
Read the bloody article no mention of 1pm
Why shouldn’t she be walking at 3.30 then?
She can but in a safe area not where it can be treacherous
Tennyson down is not treacherous on a day like yesterday.
Really doesn’t seem like that to me
Wow i never knew going for a (totally legal) walk was irresponsible. I need to rethink my life.
There is going for a sensible safe walk and then there is going for a walk in places where the ground is dangerous and very slippery
Not exactly Dartmoor is it. A perfect place to walk, just an accident. A few very sore housebound here it seems.
You can get help if uptight, that is ONE thing the N H S are overstaffed with, talking the talk on a phone, so long as you don’t need real treatment, a call from someone pretending to ‘care’ is easy and cheap and totally useless to most, as it is real treatment, not empty words the masses now need.
Obviously not a perfect place to walk or she wouldn’t have needed coastguard or ambulance
Have you never heard of accidents? They can happen anywhere even in your own house.
Coastguard should have gone out first hardly an easy spot for the ambulance to reach and but if a waist of nhs time seeing every thing that’s going on atm
Unbelievable and that poor Lady I do wish her very well in her recovery! I must ask as to why the coast guard couldnt have run her to Hospital instead of waiting on a Ambulance but I may be reading your report wrong and the poor Lady was there for 5 hours before the coast Guard arrived!
Anyway I do wish her very well!
Why do the far left always get voted up during the morning, but then the votes go the other way in the evening?..
May be because some people have to work for a living to pay for the benefits that the far left keep moaning about…
You are a grade A tool!
Very intellectual of you, I must have hit a nerve…
Who cares what side anybody’s on the main thing is the lady is safe and sound. And as for your comment on the benefits don’t be so stupid yes I know there are people that take the piss over benefits but there are others that can’t help but be on benefits
How worrying for her.
Surely someone could have taken blankets and hot tea to her.
Is this not a lockdown !!! She should be walking close to her home ! People are still disregarding the rules walking up Tennyson down is not a necessity !!! Dog owners are only allowed to walk their dog close to home but others drive for miles for a jolly then end up in difficulties i.e walking close to cliff edges and falling off !!;;
Theres plenty of houses near the bottom
There will be a lot more in a few years time
Linda , where in the report does it say she didn’t live locally?
Wishing the poor lady a speedy recovery
How can you say Tennyson Downs is not “local” for walks when there are houses situated at the bottom in Freshwater Bay!!! & please tell me where it states “dog owners” must walk their dogs “close to home”….Government states keep to your local area for exercise, if you live in Freshwater/Freshwater bay is this not “local”… Goodness if there is one area that is beneficial to keeping peoples health & wellbeing in check its Tennyson – out in the open walking up a fantastic area…
It is just very unfortunate that this lady had an accident in this area, she still could of been waiting 5hrs for an ambulance if it had happened down on the sea front in Freshwater Bay!!
Let’s just hope the lady has a speedy recovery….
Linda Belcher travels as can be seen by her photos on this site.
Well said
What a load of rubbish! She could easily have been local! Tennyson down is not in the middle of nowhere and as for dog walking there are no laws that tell you how far you can go! Most dogs need good amounts of off lead runs and all the safe places to do that are often not on the doorstep or places you can get away from others to distance properly.
Anyway at least she was walking not like the numerous cars still on the roads during this latest lockdown.
Why not stake and chips as well, no good doing things by half.
Why!! would anyone want to walk at this time of year on a very remote part of the island alone???, the ground is muddy and difficult for anyone.
Bill her £££££….
Many people walk alone to avoid the risk of catching CV, and for the same reason walk in remote locations, where if you see another person, you can avoid them in open areas which you can’t do on narrow footpaths or pavements.
This is hardly the moors of Dartmoor, so a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
MORE accidents happen in the home than they ever do outside.
Judging by the negative votes I’m being bombarded by, the far left snowflakes that are probably on benefits and vote Labour don’t like it when reality smacks them down.
There minds simply shut down, they probably get their education from the far left media and read the tree hugging Gardian…
Lots of us walk alone and remote to get away from people like you!
Anti vampire ?
Atrocious headline, you have made it sound like the ambulance service kept her waiting 5 hours.
Yes I agree, had to read it twice. Not clear. Did it take 5 hours for the alarm to be raise or did she call for help and then waited for 5 hours?
Agree, very poorly written piece. I have read through a couple of times, still can’t work out when she actually made the phone call.
It’s a very busy area, when it shouldn’t be, luckily she had a phone, or one of the hundreds of dog walkers found her. I wish her well in her recovery.
Many people walk on wide open areas, to avoid the inconsiderate who, IF you walk on footpaths or streets, don’t bother to distance themselves.
So I see no issue in going to places where avoidance is both easier and sensible.
More accidents occur at home and even IF she weren’t local and travelled then being in a car alone doesn’t spread this, close proximity does, so she was doing the right thing imo.
You should worry more how many people are floating over, unchecked daily into our country as they have to find work in takeaways as no income, so if infected will spread even more variants to unwitting people.
I will avoid all such places until this is over IF ever. I have a shop and a cooker, plenty of time, use it.
If she was fit enough to walk along Tennyson’s downs then surely she could have dragged herself to a roadway for a lift. This would have saved the cost of all the emergency services used.
What a nasty comment IF that was your wife, assuming someone is unlucky enough to be such, then I doubt you would expect her to ‘drag herself’ when injured anywhere, when we have expensive fleets of coastguards doing little, fire brigades, ambulances not hauling CV victims 24/7 and police who catch a few, for courts to allow free days later.
We pay our taxes c.tax, NI, to be cared for by these professionals, not for us to live as the third worlds citizens once did before jumping on the Wests bandwagon and having to make our own crutch from a vandalised bench leg.
Just try walking up there. It’s a lot further than you think!
Nasty little man
I think you should go up Tennyson Down today, pretend to be injured then drag yourself back down to see how quickly you’ll find a road. Please let us know how you get on.
Hope the lady is ok
She should have said she had covid they would have been there immediately,as nothing else matters anymore apart from a “virus “with a 99.98% recovery rate
the virus does not have a 99.98% recovery rate. The fatality rate is 3%
Of the around 75 million that have had the virus, 2.15 million have died. There are 25million with the virus now who cannot be counted either way as they have not recovered or died yet.
The recovery rate currently is 97%, but that still does not take into account those who die without getting tested first, it only covers confirmed cases. Oh, and remember the death rate is only that low because of worldwide lockdowns, masks, and other efforts to fight the virus. When the virus first began to take hold, the death rate was around 20%
It’s just under 3 per cent that die and when you have lost friends and family to covid and seen people really suffer with it then you will soon change your tune
Wow,I cannot believe how horrible and negative some people are. The poor lady was out on a walk and had an accident why does everyone have to go to war about everthing and be so mean, should all be ashamed of yourselves. I for one hope she is ok. Grow up people xx
Or when wrong, and called out on it, act like five year old, still determined to have the last word whilst throwing a tantrum… Ffs people you are making The Island look embarrassing and inbred… oh sorry Ron and Old bean those webbed feet would stop you walking a trail like Tennyson.