A PARAMEDIC convicted of failing to provide reasonable care to a patient who later died has told an inquest into the man’s death that he believed if a call made for police back-up had been treated as the highest priority category, they could have been able to get the patient to hospital.
John Sutherland described a “huge delay” between him and his colleague Tom Le Sauteur first requesting assistance – in response to what they described as aggressive actions by Fraser Irvine – and the States police arriving.
Mr Irvine went into cardiac arrest and died in March 2022 following an overdose while in the care of the paramedics.
Mr Sutherland and Mr Le Sauteur were subsequently put on trial and found guilty of failing to provide reasonable care to the 39-year-old. The pair were given conditional discharges.
Giving evidence on the second full day of an inquest into Mr Irvine’s death yesterday, Mr Sutherland said that the police officers who arrived at the scene “were outstanding”.
“I want to make that very clear,” he stressed.
Asked what could be done to learn from the incident in order to protect Islanders in the future, Mr Sutherland said it was his “belief” that if the police had “come as a Category 1 response when we first called them” that “Mr Irvine was still in a condition where we could have helped him down the stairs to the ambulance and got him to hospital”.
“I just assumed that they would respond quickly,” said Mr Sutherland.
Mr Sutherland described Mr Irvine as being a “little bit more mobile at that point”, adding it was their hope they could have got him down the stairs to the ambulance.
Mr Sutherland also told the inquest there was no “specific” training – “written and received” – on how to communicate the degree of clinical need of a patient to the police when they arrive at an incident.
“They will be asking, you will be telling,” he said.
He described these as “communications you naturally have with colleagues when they arrive on the scene”.
Mr Sutherland admitted that there had been a lack of appreciation of the urgency of the situation after all crew were on scene, when questioned by the Coroner Bridget Dolan.
He added that Mr Irvine “wasn’t moved quicker because we made the decision to put on PPE”.
Police officers who went to assist the paramedics told the inquest on Tuesday that they watched the patient’s condition worsen and retrospectively said that treatment should have been provided quicker.
Mr Sutherland told the inquest on Wednesday there were “certainly things I would have done differently”, including trying to get monitoring equipment up to the flat which meant they “could have monitored him [Mr Irvine] closely”.
“It just happened the way it did,” he said of the incident.
“It’s really sad someone passed away – at the time we believed we were doing our best for Fraser.”
Asked by Advocate Nicholas Mière, representing Mr Irvine’s family, about the request for police assistance, Mr Sutherland said: “The fact we’re calling means we’re in trouble and we need help.”
Mr Sutherland said they were not “specifically” given training on what to say when requesting assistance or information on how calls were graded.
