He called 999 bleeding to death — help arrived 9 hours too late

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A proud and active member of his community, Peter Parker lost his life after waiting more than nine hours for an ambulance at his Port Talbot home, despite telling emergency services he was “bleeding to death.” His family, still searching for answers and accountability, remembers him not just for the circumstances of his passing but for the warmth and vibrancy he brought to their lives.
Kiara Parker, his granddaughter, recalls the deep bond they shared through Saturday coffee outings, chip shop dinners, and the laughter that filled their days, especially after her grandmother’s passing during the early days of the Covid pandemic. Peter, who ran his own bus company and was known for his constant tinkering around the house, remained energetic and independent well into his late seventies. “He was always doing something,” Kiara says. “You could visit him one week and by the next, the whole layout of the house would be different. He just liked to keep his hands busy.” Even as he approached his 80th birthday, Peter was making plans to celebrate at the Carmarthen Club, determined to live life to the fullest.
He was also a cherished member of the “Brown Bombers Club,” a group of bus enthusiasts who restored a vintage bus named Beth. “People think Beth is a woman when I talk about her, but it’s a bus,” Kiara laughs. “He absolutely doted on her.” His mischievous humor and affection for his family were constants, with Kiara remembering, “He used to joke with the other grandkids and say I was his favourite. I know I shouldn’t say that, but… I was definitely his girl.”
On the night of September 10, 2021, Peter’s routine of rearranging furniture led to a tragic accident when a glass table shattered, severing his right radial artery. He called 999 at 9:10pm, but despite the urgency of his injury, help did not arrive until the following morning, and Peter was pronounced dead at 7:09am. The official inquest found that Peter died from a haemorrhage caused by the injury, and that the significant delay in ambulance response was a contributing factor. Medical guidelines indicate that survival from such an injury is possible if treated within 30 to 45 minutes, but Peter waited more than nine hours for help that never came.
Kiara describes the anguish of that night, recalling how she and her partner Jack learned of the emergency from a neighbor’s missed calls, only to arrive and find that emergency services had not entered the property. “The police were also there but didn’t break entry, not knowing that a call had come through at half past nine in the night. They waited for me to open the door for them. That’s something that bothers me to this day—one, that they didn’t send a welfare check out, and two, that the police were there—and they are quite entitled to break entry to a property if they know someone’s life is in danger. So for them to be waiting around for me to open the door is something that I still can’t wrap my head around.”
Inside, the evidence of Peter’s desperate attempts to save himself was clear: running water, tea towels, and objects scattered in a frantic effort to stop the bleeding. Kiara is grateful she was spared the sight of the aftermath, saying, “If I did see what was described, I think things would be far worse for me to handle. I don’t want the last image of my grandfather to be that. It would have been traumatic for me.”
The family’s grief was compounded by the lack of communication from the Welsh Ambulance Service, which did not contact them after Peter’s death. The inquest revealed that Peter’s 999 call was classified as Amber 1—urgent, but not the highest priority—and that the call handler made five unsuccessful attempts to reconnect after the line was cut. “The transcript is shoc