A patient whose arrival at a hospital was delayed by 16 minutes after the ambulance he was in made a wrong turn on a Tokyo expressway later died, the Tokyo Fire Department said Monday.
According to the department, the seriously ill patient, a man in his 70s, was being transported from a hospital in Shinagawa Ward to one in Koto Ward at around 11:10 a.m. on Oct 7, Sankei Shimbun reported.
Instead of turning onto the Oi entrance of the Metropolitan Expressway’s Bayshore Route, the driver mistakenly took the Central Circular Route’s Chukan Oi-Minami entrance. The mistake caused a 16-minute delay in the patient’s arrival at the Koto Ward hospital.
The patient took a sudden turn for the worse during the trip and began vomiting blood in the ambulance. His condition quickly deteriorated and he died the next day.
