Vic: Mother criticises ambulance delays after son's death

AAP General News (Australia)
08-17-2004
Vic: Mother criticises ambulance delays after son's death

The mother of a 10-year-old boy who hung himself has told a coroner's court the ambulance
was too slow to arrive and paramedics gave her son the wrong treatment.

The Victorian Coroner's Court has heard CAROLE HICKMAN found her son BEN HICKMAN hanging
from a length of nylon rope in a shed at the family's Bacchus Marsh property last September.

Mrs HICKMAN's told the court she called triple-0 but an ambulance took about 30 minutes
to arrive.

Coroner IAIN WEST has also heard the boy was treated with an anti-nausea drug instead
of a drug to speed up his heart.

Paramedic DARREN SUTTON has told the hearing that the mistake was made because both
drugs are kept in similar packages.

The inquest is continuing.

AAP RTV mf/dk/sco/mj/psm/

KEYWORD: HICKMAN (MELBOURNE)

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