A 14-year-old Scot who died of exhaustion while hiking in the Australian outback was forced to wait an hour for medical attention partly because medical staff could not understand his father's accent, a court has heard.
Ewan Louis Williamson, from Largs, Ayrshire, died after collapsing on a trek through the Cape Range National Park while on a trip to see his father Gordon.
The Scotsman reports an inquest was told yesterday that emergency call handlers struggled to understand his father accent when he phoned to ask for help.
Ewan had flown out to spend Christmas with his civil engineer father. They set off on the four-hour walk through Badjirrajirra Creek at about 10am. The time meant that they were out in the hottest temperatures of the day.
The teenager started to feel faint shortly after they had started the walk, and his 49-year-old father found him shade and gave him some water.
The pair returned to the track to go back to their car but took a wrong turn and walked far further than planned.
His father told the Western Australia Coroner’s Court that when his son was unable to walk the last 400m to the car, he left him in shade and went to his vehicle to phone emergency services at 2pm.
The inquest heard that he asked for police help but the request was not logged as an incident needing immediate attendance.
He said the operator could not understand his accent and was not local to the area, so did not understand where he was until he gave GPS co-ordinates.
Mr Williamson said: “It all seemed to take so long."
Police arrived at 2:58pm, and it took a long time to transport his son less than half a kilometre to safety as they did not have a stretcher. Paramedics followed and tried to resuscitate Ewan but he died in hospital that evening.
A post-mortem revealed Ewan's death was consistent with severe heatstroke or exhaustion, which was complicated by a recent viral illness which inflamed his heart.
The Herald previously reported that the Largs Academy pupil's death was the latest in a series of tragedies to hit his family.
His grandparents Margaret and Les Butler told The Herald in 2013, Ewan was their third grandchild to have died in four years.
Mrs Butler said: "We lost two grandsons, Gareth and Mark, to cystic fibrosis. Gareth died in 2009 aged just 19, and Mark died in 2011, aged 18. When we heard the news that Ewan had died, we just couldn't take it in."
Mrs Butler explained Ewan's death had impacted heavily on other family members.
She said: "Our daughter Janet still can't talk about it and Gordon hasn't been able to speak to anyone else at all except his dad. We just don't know how one family can have so much bad luck.
"I'm still dreaming about him every night. I just can't get over it. He was so excited about going to see his dad. I can't describe what it feels like to see your grandchildren getting buried before you. We've been asking: 'Why not us?' We're old and we've had our time. Not another grandson."
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