Father dies after waiting for paramedics as Victoria’s ambulance crisis worsens
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Katrina Christou watched for 70 minutes as the love of her life died.

Hospital staff worked Daniel Vasiljevic’s chest, performing CPR, but could not save the new father from a fatal heart attack.

“My favourite person has been stolen from me. My daughter’s father – gone,” Christou said.

Danny Vasiljevic, 36, was suffering from severe chest pains when he dialed triple-zero. (Nine)

“That’s our whole future ripped away, because of negligence.”

Vasiljevic, also known as Danny, knew he was in trouble whilst picking up groceries on the night of September 23.

The 36-year-old called his wife, complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath, before dialling triple zero.

It took his wife 11 minutes to drive to and find her husband at the Arena Shopping Centre car park in Officer, in Melbourne’s south-east.

Vasiljevic was passing out, their 10-month-old daughter Ariana was alone in the back seat, and paramedics hadn’t arrived.

Code one emergencies in Victoria are supposed to have an ambulance arrive within 15 minutes. (Nine)

In a split second, Christou had made her decision, she was going to drive her husband to hospital herself.

“I didn’t think twice about taking him to the hospital,” she told 9News Melbourne.

“I could see how quickly he was deteriorating. No one was on the phone with him. No one called him back to check in.

“There was nothing put in place for the safety of my child in the back of the car with him and if I had come a little bit later, he would have been unconscious and she would have been in the car by herself.”

Christou said it wasn’t until they arrived at the hospital that he really deteriorated.

“I would like to hope that if someone was there earlier, we would be in a different predicament right now,” she said.

Paramedics arrived 22 minutes after Vasiljevic dialled triple-zero.

Hospital staff worked Daniel Vasiljevic’s chest, performing CPR, but could not save the new father from a fatal heart attack. (Nine)

Victoria’s ambulance crisis continues

Ambulance Victoria’s Anthony Carlyon said on that night they were “particularly busy”.

“We do accept at this point in time it looks like our arrival in the vicinity of 22 minutes.”

Premier Daniel Andrews insists those outcomes are improving.

“We are seeing improvements. We are seeing better performance,” he said.

“There are 2200 more paramedics on the road today than when we came to office.”

Ambulance Victoria says it is now investigating, as is the state’s triple zero call taker (ESTA), which had its computer system collapse at 7:40 last night.

Attorney General Jaclyn Symes says ambulance calls were prioritised as dispatchers switched to a manual system.

Daniel Andrews insists those outcomes are improving for the triple zero service. (Nine)

It took almost six hours for their computer program to come back online.

But according to the Opposition’s Brad Battin, for “13 hours the system was down from its full capacity”.

That’s little comfort to a mother-of-one who lost the love of her life, in the midst of planning a second child.

“He’ll be spoken about every day,” Christou said.

“He has to be, he was such a good person. And this shouldn’t have happened to him.

“Is the care actually there in my eyes? Still no. This happened nearly four weeks ago, I’ve only just heard from them now.”

Christou is waiting on the coroner to investigate.

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