Ambos left 'dead' patient later found alive
POLICE ordered a morgue van to collect a "corpse" let by paramedics who had failed to check for signs of life and left the scene.
Forty minutes later, the "cold" and "blue" man, who had been left lying on his Belrose garage floor under a blanket, began showing signs of life, prompting startled police to recall the ambulance crew.
The man was unaware of what had happened until informed by The Sunday Telegraph yesterday.
The incident has triggered a major stoush between the Health Services Union (HSU) and Ambulance NSW over who is responsible for verifying death, with the union taking the organisation to court, accusing it of victimising senior paramedic Gregory Bruce by ordering him to do a refresher course after the incident.
The union is also accusing Ambulance NSW of unfairly targeting Mr Bruce, a long-serving Narrabeen intensive care specialist paramedic, because he is a union activist.
Read more on The Daily Telegraph.
