By Helen Johnstone . The Times. UK. February 24 2000
A BRITISH tourist who went to Cuba to celebrate his engagement died in agony in an ill-equipped hospital unaware that facilities that could have saved him were minutes away, an inquest heard yesterday.
Philip Yeoman's fiancée watched him suffer after he sustained a fractured skull and his leg was partially severed in an accident. Jane Harris, 47, then spent four hours trying to find help for Mr Yeoman after staff tried to treat him with a bandage. Doctors tried to drain blood from his
lung without anaesthetic and an oxygen machine did not work.
When the 16st rugby fan died, Ms Harris learned that there was a fully-equipped hospital a mile away.
After a verdict of accidental death was recorded at the inquest at Reading, Ms Harris described how their holiday turned into a nightmare. The couple, from Marlow, Buckinghamshire, had been enjoying their holiday when Mr Yeoman, 45, was crushed between two lorries on a moped in Varadero, on
September 7 last year. Ms Harris watched as a dilapidated ambulance arrived to take him on the hour-long journey.
"Philip was screaming in pain most of the way. His leg was almost hanging off, but the ambulance staff just wrapped it in a plastic bag," she said. "They finally decided to cut into his side to drain his lung, with no anaesthetic. They tried to insert a tube into him but it didn't
fit . . . A doctor then picked up another from the floor and tried that. All the time an old lady was on her hands and knees mopping up the blood."
Copyright 2000 Times Newspapers Ltd. |