IN DECEMBER of last year, former Enniskillen man Peter McCaughey rang an ambulance from his Belfast apartment. 

Reporting high blood sugar levels that hadn't responded to insulin, Peter knew that as a Type 1 diabetic, he was at risk of life-threatening diabetic ketoacidosis. 

In this situation, he was always told to ring an ambulance, and given his medical needs, it had to arrive within 18 minutes. 

Nine-and-a-half hours later, crews arrived.

Peter was unconscious on the kitchen floor, nearing death. 

For his parents, Gerald and Geraldine, receiving the news that their 31-year-old son was facing death was beyond comprehension.

Doctors at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, told them their son had fallen into a diabetic coma at around 1am the night before. He had fainted and hit his head on the kitchen table, resulting in a bleed in his brain. 

They were told that Peter lay unconscious on the cold kitchen floor for hours, eventually becoming hypothermic. 

When crews eventually arrived at 8.30am the following morning, they needed police assistance to break his apartment door in.

Peter suffered two cardiac arrests before he arrived at the Royal Victoria Hospital, which is less than five minutes from his apartment. 

In the words of Gerald, his son "was left to die". 

Fast-forward two months, and Peter knows all too well that he is lucky to be alive. 

Now recovering at home in Enniskillen, he spent a total of three-and-a-half weeks in the hospital, receiving life-saving medical treatment in ICU and the Endocrinology ward.

At one point, doctors feared he had sustained serious brain damage.

Against all odds, Peter miraculously pulled through. Right now,  he says that he is "taking each day as it comes", and that while he is still dealing with the physical and mental after-effects, he has been able to return to his job as a software engineer on a part-time basis.

In many ways, time has proven a healer - but it hasn't solved the lingering sense of anger amongst the McGaugheys that the ambulance didn't come sooner.

"Peter was depending on that ambulance. He trusted them with his life," Gerard said.

"If you are sick and live on your own, that's all you have. You need that ambulance to come. He was let down badly."

The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) has since offered "sincere apologies" for what they described as an "unacceptable delay" resulting from "capacity and demand on the service".

This is cold comfort to Gerard, who almost lost his son. 

"If the ambulance would have come out within 18 minutes, we wouldn't be in this situation," Gerard said.

"They took nine and a half hours, and I firmly believe that if they had been another ten minutes later, Peter was dead.

"The Emergency Departments are overwhelmed. I was told that ambulances were queued up outside the hospitals with drunks [on the night Peter fell ill]. People with self-inflicted ailments - all while my son lay dying on a cold floor.

"The health service is broken. Something needs to be done to address the situation at every A&E." 

Equally, Peter's mum, Geraldine, also lives with the trauma and the 'what-ifs' around her son's ordeal. 

She spent all of Christmas visiting her son in hospital, praying for his recovery.

"I stayed up in Belfast to be with him," she said. "I remember going into the ward, Peter was on a ventilator. I kissed him on the forehead, and said 'I'm here for you'.

"After around a week, we got some glimmer of hope. Alarms started flashing on his machine, but I was told not to panic. The nurse said he was trying to breathe on his own, and they were a good sign. 

"At this point, we didn't know if he had suffered permanent brain damage. Christmas didn't exist. It was such an anxious time."

Slowly but surely, Peter began to recover, and he was eventually discharged home to Enniskillen on January 6.

"It's a miracle he is here with us," continued Geraldine, adding that she wished to pay tribute to the "inspirational" medical staff in Belfast who helped with Peter's recovery. 

The McGaughey family hope that by telling their son's story, they can raise awareness of the "dire situation" that's ongoing in the health service. 

"Peter was one of the lucky ones, but you can't help but think how many wouldn't have been as fortunate that night," Geraldine said. 

"We saw first-hand what staff have to go through, both on the wards and in A&E.

"It's truly heart-breaking. They are heroes, but the system is broken. Something needs to change."

The Impartial Reporter approached the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service for a comment. However, no statement had been received by the time of going to print.