The BBC documentary I saw last year talked about the timings of the ambulance. I read somewhere that they now feel that some of the people who died would have survived if the ambulances had arrived sooner. One of the hardest scenes to watch was of the people crushed against the barrier, screaming for help, and a policeman standing still doing nothing.
I'm not one for pointing the finger just because there has to be someone to blame, but for me, the inaction of the police and their inability to recognise there was something serious happening did have major consequences. I accept that people can freeze, and can panic, but naively I always assumed that people in the emergency services are trained to deal with that.
IIRC the ambulances were not allowed on the pitch for some time? I think someone made a decision that they shouldn't come on, and by the time they did, it was too late.
edit: I found the link:
http://www.lfchistory.net/Articles/Article/2887
This is a link to the story of the
ONLY professional ambulance man to attend at Leppings Lane. [BBM]
The police wouldn't let the ambulances on the pitch as "they're still fighting". The senior ambulance man said
"I don't give a *advertiser censored** who's told you you can't go on. You get on that pitch and you don't stop until you get to the end."
And I thought: "I can't help everybody." I was looking back up the pitch for other ambulances, but nobody was coming.
We weren't doing any good. You're used to having one casualty in the back, but there were too many bodies to deal with. We just didn't do a very good job that day. We left people on that pitch who were being worked on, and there were no professionals there to help them.
But we were never given the chance at Hillsborough. There were 44 ambulances waiting outside the stadium - that means 80-odd staff could have been inside the ground. But they weren't allowed in. There was no fighting! The survivors were deciding who was the priority, who we should deal with. The police weren't. We weren't. Can you imagine a rail accident where all the ambulances wait on the embankment while the survivors bring the casualties up? I took away the wrong people.
This has really shocked me - there were 44 ambulances waiting outside the stadium. And only one went in, and they could hardly save anyone.
This guy was left out of the Taylor enquiry and was never asked to give evidence - he believes because no one wanted to admit what a farce it was. He sufferered PTSD and in 1995 left the ambulance service forever, as he was still affected by the events at Hillsborough.
