Sierra Leonean mother and baby die in UK

A pregnant Sierra Leonean woman and her baby died after paramedics drove for more than an hour to a hospital 10 miles away instead of driving to the nearest A&E.

Estherline Caulker, 39 who was born in Freetown and raised up in the UK, collapsed at a train station in London and was stuck in rush hour traffic for 84 minutes after a London Ambulance crew failed to realize she was bleeding internally.

She suffered from a cardiac arrest, where her heart suddenly stops beating, and died in hospital from bleeding the following morning, the Evening Standard reports.

Her daughter was delivered by emergency Caesarean section but died hours after the opperations.

Coroner Mary Hassell said there were failures in communication at ‘every stage’ in Mrs Caulker’s care, and she ‘probaby would have survived’ if she had been taken to a closer A&E in an ambulance with the sirens and blue lights on.

Poplar’s coroner court heard that paramedic Alex Boda suspected ‘significant bleeding’ when he arrived at Kensal Rise station and found Mrs Caulker at 5:41pm on the ground.

Immediately he called for an ambulance to take Ms Caulker to hospital, correctly believing her condition to be life-threatening.

But the ambulance crew took her to Homerton Hospital, a normally-55 minute journey which took 84 minutes as they got stuck in traffic.

A&E departments at St Mary’s in Paddington, or the Royal Free in Hampstead were only 10 minutes away in ambulance.

The ambulance crew said they took Ms Caulker to Homerton ‘in line with her wishes’ as she was receiving antenatal care there, and they believed her condition was stable.

However, once arriving at Homerton hospital, she was not seen by a doctor for two hours.

Paul Quarterton, a paramedic, said it is ‘general practice’ to take pregnant women to their usual maternity unit.

‘At the time, I believed we were making the best decision for the patients,’ the court heard, according to the Evneing Standard.

Mrs Caulker, a Ladbrokes sales manager who lived in Hackney, was morbidly obese at 20st.

Yashwant Koak, a consultant general surgeon at Homerton Hospital, said she would have had a 75 per cent chance of survival if she had been taken to A&E.

By the time she arrived at hospital, this would have dropped down to 50 per cent.

And at the time she went into cardiac arrest, it would have dropped to less than five per cent, he said.

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