An inquest heard yesterday revealed that a firefighter cursed at paramedics for neglecting to bring life-saving equipment to the seaside location where a woman had just been retrieved from waters after getting trapped between rocks.
The first emergency responder on the site, paramedic Colleen Gibson, is alleged to have neglected to inform police and firefighters that Saffron Cole-Nottage was inside a critical 30-minute window in which her life might still be spared.
The two-week inquest investigating Ms. Cole-Nottage’s death has previously heard how, seven minutes into a call with the teenager who raised the alarm, a 999 operator failed to determine that the mother-of-six was in danger of drowning owing to the approaching tide.
Last week, another paramedic who came after Ms. Gibson accused other responders of essentially “winging it” during the “disjointed” situation.
On February 2 of last year, Ms. Cole-Nottage, 32, went head-first into the sea defence rocks in Lowestoft, Suffolk, while walking her dog with her daughter.
Ms. Gibson said that although she had been involved in four prior water disasters before to Ms. Cole-Nottage’s, she lacked the necessary training to assume command of a multi-agency emergency.
“I felt unable to make a rescue and now, being 20 minutes submerged,” she said to the inquest after arriving near the sea at 8:10 p.m.
According to police bodycam footage, when officers arrived soon after, they asked Ms. Gibson whether there was anything that could be done to help Ms. Cole-Nottage. She said, “No.”
Saffron Cole-Nottage, 32, fell in Lowestoft while taking her daughter for a dog walk.
When inquest counsel Bridget Dolan KC asked her why she hadn’t informed her emergency services colleagues that there might have been an additional ten minutes to save the patient’s life, she responded, “I don’t know.”
Ms. Dolan continued, “I don’t believe that to be safe,” after the police “said that if they’d been told a rescue was possible they would have tried.” I couldn’t use the water to reach down into the rocks head-first.
“Nobody is saying you should have tried,” Ms. Dolan retorted. According to the police, they would have attempted to save Saffron if they had known it was possible.
As the first responder on the site, Ms. Gibson ought to have taken charge, according to expert witness Matthew England, a paramedic and nurse who sits on a panel that advises the Home Office about emergency services collaborating on events.
It “did not appear very coordinated in terms of what was going on,” he continued. “When the fire service extracted [Ms. Cole-Nottage], they did not seem to be aware that it was being called a [body] recovery.” She should have also communicated with the Coast Guard, police, and firefighters there. He told the panel, “They started CPR. I could not see any evidence of a huddle or briefing going on between the agencies. There did not seem to be any briefing or any sort of awareness.”
The mother of six was trapped head-first between rocks used for sea protection.
When a teenage girl dialled 999 for assistance, the operator took seven minutes to realise that the tide was approaching quickly.
According to the inquest, firefighters who went down to Ms. Cole-Nottage were able to extricate her in less than a minute, and they requested that paramedics bring life-saving equipment near to the scene.
“The initial rescue is basic life support, mouth-to-mouth,” Ms. Dolan stated. “We had witnessed the expletive use by a fire officer at the scene, asking the ambulance to get down and bring equipment.”
It would have been preferable to do it at “a safe spot where you have 360 degrees access to the patient,” according to Mr. England, who stated that the area surrounding the sea defence rocks “was not a safe place to carry out anything but basic life support.”
As the “lone paramedic” at first, he noted, Ms. Gibson, who sobbed on the witness stand, ought to have had “more support…” from the control room.
“The words “trapped,” “jammed,” and “stuck” [were said] within four minutes of the call,” the coroner said, referring to the teenage girl’s 999 call. “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realise a single crew RRV [rapid response vehicle] would not be able to do much about that.”
Ms. Cole-Nottage fell head-first between the rocks, leaving her legs stuck in the air, according to testimony given on the first day of the inquest last week.
Following Ms. Cole-Nottage’s passing, floral tributes were placed at the spot.
The 999 call was made at 7:52 p.m., but the call handler didn’t realise how fast the tide was approaching until 7:59 p.m.
Call handler team leader Christopher Strutt told the inquest that as soon as it became clear that someone’s head was trapped, the ambulance service should have called the fire department.
However, he claimed that controllers were prevented from posing their own enquiries until the list was finished since they had to follow an algorithm and ask questions that were prompted by their computer.
Coroner Darren Stewart suggested that the “rather clunky” method had contributed to a “muddled response” in response to the revelation.
The tragedy involving Ms. Cole-Nottage occurred a few days after a full moon, according to Chris Finbow, a senior coastal engineer for East Suffolk Council, who spoke at the inquest today.
Approximately 700 tides occur annually. “We saw a tidal range of three percent of those that night,” he explained, “meaning the tide came in very quickly.” We often see large tides following full moons, and this one was 80 cm higher than a typical tide. That was its pinnacle.
According to evidence presented before the inquest, Ms. Cole-Nottage had consumed alcohol on the day of the event and was over three times the legal limit when she fell.
Her spouse, Mick Wheeler, said in a statement following her passing that she had led a life “full of love and laughter” with their kids and that her passing had “left an indescribable void.”
The inquest is still ongoing.
