A widow has been left with a heartbreaking last memory of her dying husband as he lay in the road for hours waiting for an ambulance.
George Ian Stevenson, 86, was left on the roadside for four hours, cold and in pain after he was hit by a car shortly after 7:30pm last Wednesday.
His family have said it “breaks their hearts” to know he lay “begging for help” at the roadside for hours before an ambulance finally came, North Wales Live reported.
And the awful image of him lying there is his wife Sylvia’s painful last memory of him.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Stevenson’s heartbroken relatives said that the first 999 call was made at 7:31pm, but an ambulance did not arrive until 11.37pm.
That means he was left in the freezing cold, rain and fog for just over four hours.
His granddaughter told the BBC he was "left there for four hours, begging for help, waiting for help. And that makes us so sad.
"A hard-working man who has paid his taxes all his life and paid into the system has been let down when he's needed them the most, and I just can't quite comprehend what has happened to him."
The 32-year-old said her grandfather was conscious and in pain while he waited, but seemed okay.
But after the ambulance arrived, she said the retired undertaker, lorry driver and mechanic went into cardiac arrest and later died.
"The one thing that breaks my heart more than anything is knowing by the time that the ambulance did arrive, was he still aware?" she said.
The family, who live a few miles from Wrexham Maelor Hospital, said the ambulance came from Dolgellau in Gwynedd, more than an hour away.
The Welsh Ambulance Service is looking into the incident, but said that at the time of the call, all its vehicles were already committed to other patients.
Two off-duty paramedics stopped to help, but were reluctant to move him in case they caused further injury.
His widow, Sylvia Stevenson, told the BBC she was "sad to lose him like that" adding that he was "so healthy".
"It makes me feel terrible," she said.
"What on earth is happening to our country, the NHS? It's North Wales [that] seems to be the worst place."
She said people were "waiting hours" for ambulances and "nobody comes to them".
Mr Stevenson was described as a "peaceful person" who "loved his family life."
Now the family are calling for more to be done to improve ambulance services and have even started a petition which has so far amassed almost 5,000 signatures.
The family's petition states: "The wait on ambulances is becoming a matter of life or death and something drastically needs to change, it’s happening all too often in the North Wales area.
"Paramedics go to work to help the people most in need and they are being prevented from doing this as there are no ambulances available and even when getting patients to the hospitals they are queued up waiting outside as there is no beds for patients.
"We are in 2022, there are people dying due to the waiting times of ambulances and the lack of beds. We need to do something about this together."
Welsh Ambulance Service operations director Lee Brooks said it was working to establish "the full sequence of events," and would contact Mr Stevenson's family.
Mr Brooks said: "What we can say at this early stage is that at the time of this call, all of our ambulance vehicles were already committed to other patients in the community or at hospitals, where handover delays in north-east Wales were especially difficult on the evening of 2 March."
An inquest into Mr Stevenson's death was opened on Monday and has been adjourned to a date yet to be fixed.
A provisional cause of death was given as severe chest injuries due to a road traffic collision.
North Wales Police have confirmed they arrested the driver of the Citroen and he has since been released under investigation while enquiries continue.
To sign the petition, click here .
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