THE ambulance service has apologised after an amateur footballer who broke his leg in two places had to make his own way to hospital.

As revealed in Tuesday’s Oxford Mail, Richard Moffat, 27, from Abingdon, who is a centre-half for The New Club, was injured four minutes into an Upper Thames Valley League clash against Woodstock Wanderers on Sunday and had to wait in the cold for almost half an hour with no pain relief.

South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) has since explained that following the initial phone caller’s details at 10.43 the incident was categorised as a Green 2 incident, requiring a response of 30 minutes.

The ambulance service said the incident was then diverted to a life-threatening red call once a rapid response vehicle had already been dispatched.

In a statement issued yesterday SCAS said: “At the time of the call, we were experiencing a high demand on our 999 services which meant that an ambulance was not immediately available.

“However, the next nearest ambulance crew was dispatched at 10.58 as soon as they had handed their patients into the care of the hospital. While en route to Tackley, we were informed by callers on the scene at 11.11 that we were no longer required.

“We take our response to our patients very seriously and we would like apologise that our service did not meet expectations on this occasion.”

Father-of-two Mr Moffat said: “If someone’s on the phone telling them there’s a man screaming in pain on the floor and he’s broken something then they should send out an ambulance, whatever the category.

“It’s brought it into reality for me the problems they have.”

Our top stories

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.