Family waited five minutes for 999 call response following baby’s collapse

Wyllow-Raine Swinburn’s family had spent 40 minutes giving her CPR as they waited for an ambulance to arrive, Oxford Coroners Court was told.

Wyllow-Raine Swinburn from Didcot, Oxfordshire, who died when she was just three days old (Family handout/PA) (PA Media)

The mother of a three-day old baby spent five minutes on an unanswered 999 call before it was transferred to another service in a different part of the country following the newborn’s collapse, an inquest heard.

Wyllow-Raine Swinburn was pronounced dead five minutes after arriving at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital in the early hours of September 30 last year.

Her family had spent 40 minutes giving her CPR as they waited for an ambulance to arrive, Oxford Coroners Court was told.

Her mother Amelia Pill was screaming “no one’s coming, no one’s coming” and cried “why aren’t they answering the f****** phone” as she waited for paramedics, the inquest heard.

An ambulance was supposed to arrive within seven minutes of a call in 90% of cases, according to South Central Ambulance Service, but Wyllow-Raine’s family were still on the phone at the time that happened.

We were told within five minutes of arriving at hospital that Wyllow had passed away

Anna Fisher, grandmother of Wyllow-Raine Swinburn

Her provisional cause of death was recorded as sudden unexpected death in infancy, with the cause of the collapse being unexplained.

She had been born weighing 10 pounds and five ounces and via a caesarean section on September 27 2022 and appeared to be healthy.

However lawyers for the family raised concerns that she may have had diabetes that had gone unnoticed by doctors as ambulance service records revealed she had “very low” blood glucose levels.

The newborn’s grandmother Anna Fisher told the hearing in evidence read out by the coroner that the baby was crying with a fever when she was taken to bed at the family home in Didcot, Oxfordshire at around midnight that night.

Her daughter phoned her just after 4am to say the baby did not appear to be breathing.

Her brother arrived and performed CPR for the majority of the time they were waiting.

He said in his statement that her skin colour changed “like when you get a bruise” as he tried to save her.

Her grandmother said: “We were told within five minutes of arriving at hospital that Wyllow had passed away.”

Karen Sillicorn-Aston, clinical governance lead for the South Central Ambulance Service, told the court the 999 call was made at 4.38am and was disconnected by a BT operator whose job it is to listen in to all calls before they are answered, five minutes later.

She said rules state the BT operator should pass the call to another service, which in this case was the East of England Ambulance Service, and the family remained on the line for two further minutes before the call was answered.

The closest ambulance, which was 20 to 25 minutes away, was dispatched but a closer one was later found and sent instead.

By the time the ambulance arrived, the baby’s body temperature had fallen to 30.8C despite the room temperature being normal before she collapsed, the hearing was told.

Pathologist Dr Darren Fowler told the hearing the baby’s cause of death was “more likely than not” to have been natural.

However, he said he was not the most qualified person to answer questions about whether she would have survived if an ambulance had arrived sooner.

Coroner Darren Salter adjourned the hearing for further evidence to be submitted.

It will resume on a date yet to be fixed, which is likely to be in around six months time.