QUESTIONS have been raised over the initial response to Natasha Richardson’s fatal ski accident after it emerged that the first ambulance sent to the injured actress was turned back.
Yves Coderre, director of operations at the emergency services company Ambulances Radisson, told Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail that paramedics called to the incident were told they were not needed.
“They never saw the patient,” Mr Coderre told The Globe and Mail. “So they turned around.”
It was only later when Richardson’s condition had deteriorated that emergency services were able to see the patient. Mr Coderre’s comments fit with a statement released by the luxury resort on Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for Station Mont Tremblant said the actress did not show any “visible signs of injury” following the accident, but that a ski patrol “insisted” that she should see a doctor.
A second recommendation that she was checked over by a medic was made before an ambulance was eventually called more than an hour after the incident.
