THE ambulance service came under fire again last night after a grandmother was left lying on the ground waiting for paramedics for almost two-and-a-half hours.

The 67-year-old woman was watching her grandson play in a football match in Darlington's South Park when she fell and broke her wrist.

The Middlesbrough pensioner is understood to have been in shock and an off-duty nurse who was nearby put her into the recovery position and phoned for an ambulance, just before 12.30pm yesterday.

The patient could not be moved in case it made her condition worse.

But it was almost 3pm before an ambulance, sent from Bishop Auckland, turned up at South Park.

Several Good Samaritans - parents watching the under-six football match - kept the patient warm by donating their coats as she shivered on the ground and they stayed with her and her family as they waited for the ambulance.

She was taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital for treatment for a broken or dislocated wrist.

A family member said: "We were told that the ambulance had been diverted to an emergency.

"But to leave a 67-year-old woman in a cold park for that long is absolutely ridiculous and dangerous.

"I know it was a broken wrist and not classed as life threatening but if she'd been there any longer it could have been very serious as she was freezing cold and in shock.

"There were a lot of people who were very kind and helpful in the park, providing blankets and coats to keep her warm, and the off-duty nurse was amazing. It's just a shame the ambulance took so long to get there."

A spokesman for the North East Ambulance Service said: “It is always distressing to hear that a patient has had to wait a long time for an ambulance.

“Demand has been very high and our priority will always be to respond to those incidents that are potentially life-threatening first. For less serious cases, this will sometimes mean a delay in an ambulance response when demand is so high - for which we are sorry.

“In these circumstances, we always advise the patient to call back on 999 if their condition gets worse.”