Police officers’ lies led to CPR being performed on woman who had been dead for weeks

“Sgt Stuart Hunter, who retired before the hearing took place, and his junior, PC Lisa Thomas, both of South Wales Police, committed gross misconduct in relation to the incident in Barry, a professional standards panel concluded.

Call logs revealed that when she first got to the woman’s house, PC Thomas had phoned the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust saying the woman was dead.

But when it became clear that this would mean an emergency crew coming later than if the woman had been alive ,the officer rang again claiming that she was not dead

The matter came to light when an ambulance control manager complained about the PC’s actions later the same day. The manager said that sending an emergency response took them away from responding to a patient in cardiac arrest who later died in hospital.”

Bloody hell

As a former officer this reeks off , we need to release resources, so the sgt has made a stupid call, that in their mind would change no outcome . So the sgt has blagged the ambo to get a fast response to remove officers back on to calls.

Dishonest of course and rightly investigated.

However, if there a corpse that is starting to rot, I think officers should also be able to call the death also. That poor PC that felt under pressure under her sgt to basically defile a corpse to get a ambo response. I want to make clear the ambo did nothing wrong as its not an emergency, its just a death call at this point and living people will come first.

Likely the young PC caved and di as she was told but forgot that all actions are yours, you cannot blame others for your actions. She raised that she was not happy the next day after thigns calmed and snubbed.

She at first did the right thing and then I imagine, sgt has put the screws in and got her to ring back and give the flase info but when in front of the PSD panel, cannot go blaming other for your actions.

From an integrity perspective this is diabolical. Right to throw the book at them. I get it; not wanting to wait, one emergency service impacting another; it’s hardly great but you have to look at the bigger picture and engage brain because following actions like this can result in peeps dying.

I also think ambulance call handler/dispatch and their supervision bear a degree of responsibility for not challenging too, especially when the first call log says they’re dead. Thats not exactly a common occurrence where an officer could make a genuine mistake.

To be honest it’s usually the other way round with police getting called out on the slightest whim but the emergency services are a ‘whole’ from a public perspective; they pay for emg services to come when needed. Services then triage to meet the challenge compared to their resources.

Is this the extent of what the police have become since 2008 and endless austerity?

Emergency services lying to eachother to try and gain a faster response isn’t exactly uncommon.

Ambulance control would frequently call to request police attend then heavily bend the truth about what’s happening to force a police response, then leave as ‘Police were dealing’

Not to say this isn’t wrong, But it’s happening because of a lack of resources, you’ve got officers and paramedics getting dragged way past finish time on already long shifts with unsustainable workloads.