A PARAMEDIC has been praised for his hard work by a man whose life he saved.

Gareth Williams, a paramedic for the Mid Wales Air Ambulance, arrived at the scene of a car crash near Corwen, where he found Corwen hotelier David Cowan injured on the A5104.

Mr Cowan was on his way home from lunch with his daughter in Chester last April when a vehicle came towards him on the wrong side of the road and collided with him head on.

The driver of the other vehicle was jailed in December after admitting dangerous driving.

“We saw two vehicles both with severe front end damage which indicated a high speed frontal collision,” said Mr Williams of Holywell.

“Mr Cowan was in his driver’s seat. I could see he had a very serious leg injury and he looked very pale and agitated with blueing to his lips.”

Mr Williams, who is also team manager for Denbigh Community First Responders, gave Mr Cowan oxygen and assessed his circulation.

“His pulse was rapid and weak and his breathing was rapid and shallow” he added.

He was moved onto a spinal board and into the ambulance.

“Mr Cowan kept saying he couldn’t breathe, his breathing was getting shallower and his colour worse,” he added. “I listened to his chest and found no breath sounds on his right hand side and I percussed his chest which sounded loud and hollow, a sign of a collapsed lung.

“I could see his life was in danger of slipping away. I inserted a large cannula into the chest cavity to allow the pressure to escape and allow the lungs and heart to expand and work.”

Gareth and David met recently and David thanked him for saving his life.

David said: “I am so grateful to Gareth, thanks to him I am still here.”

A paramedic says he wasn’t taking part in a union-directed go-slow campaign during the 2009 city workers’ strike when he refused to attend to a dying man for more than 35 minutes while waiting for police backup.

Paramedic Trevor Cornwell said his slow response to help James Hearst wasn’t influenced at all by a union email sent out after the strike began, which stated, “Do not compromise care by rushing. One call at a time.”

His comment came on Wednesday amid sometimes withering questions at the coroner’s inquest into Hearst’s death on June 25, 2009. The 59-year-old collapsed and died of a heart attack in the lobby of his apartment building on Alexander St., near Yonge and College Sts.

It was Cornwell’s first public comment on Hearst’s death. Under questioning from inquest counsel Stefania Fericean, he blamed a lack of “road sense” and training for a decision by himself and his partner, Hayley Rothwell-Cusak, to park nearby and wait for police to lead them to the apartment building.

The inquest has heard that they didn’t go to the scene, drive past it or even peek out at the apartment building from near the corner of Yonge and Alexander Sts., where they waited more than 35 minutes for a police escort. The inquest also heard there never was any report of violence at the building.

Asked if the city workers’ strike had any effect on their decision to wait for a police escort, Cornwell replied: “Absolutely not.”

The paramedics had been on strike three days when Hearst died.

When Cornwell and Rothwell-Cusak finally headed to the building, it took them more than four minutes to travel less than a block.

It took another minute to get inside to Hearst. Cornwell said they weren’t deliberately trying to go slow, even though they were passed by a fire truck also heading to the scene from the other side of Yonge St. They were also beaten to the apartment by another ambulance.

“This particular evening was no different than any other evening for me,” Cornwell said.

The inquest has heard it was their second “staging” — refusing to go to a scene without police escort — that evening. There have been no details of the other staging.

The burly 6-foot-3 paramedic said they decided the scene might be dangerous even though they heard no reports of weapons or violence.

Under often withering cross-examination from government lawyer Emtiaz Bala, Cornwell said he had never heard that the apartment building at 40 Alexander St. was a particularly dangerous spot.

Cornwell said they continued to worry the scene might be dangerous, even though a dispatcher was getting cellphone updates from a female security guard in the lobby where Hearst lost consciousness.

Cornwell said he and Rothwell-Cusak lacked the necessary experience to accurately assess possible dangers to themselves at the scene.

He also testified that the call wasn’t originally a high-priority one for an incident of a life-threatening nature.

At the time of the call, Cornwell had been on the job for a year while Rothwell-Cusak had worked just four shifts. It was their first time working together, Cornwell said.

“Do you think that either of you had any road sense at that point?” Fericean asked.

“No,” Cornwell replied, then added: “In Hayley’s case, none. In mine, very little. ... I learn new things every day on this job.”

Cornwell said he was at a loss to explain his actions when ordered by a supervisor to file a report on his lack of action that evening. “I didn’t know what to write ... how to get all of my thoughts on paper clearly.”

Fericean pressed him to elaborate.

“The entire call and how it went so horribly wrong,” Cornwell replied. “It turned out our assumptions were totally wrong.”

Fericean asked him to explain how they concluded the apartment lobby might be dangerous for them.

“There was no information about weapons?” Fericean asked.

“No.”

She then asked if there were ever any reports about ongoing violence.

“No,” Cornwell replied.

He was asked why they didn’t park across the street, rather than around the corner on Yonge St.

“If someone came running out, it would have put us in harm’s way.”

Bala asked him if he told Rothwell-Cusak she should pull the ambulance ahead 10 metres, so they could peek out at the building.

“Did I tell her to drive?” Cornwell replied. “Not that I remember.”

Bala asked if he told his less-experienced colleague to drive to the building after the call was upgraded to one of a life-threatening nature.

“I don’t remember telling her to just go,” Cornwell said.

He acknowledged he didn’t follow several protocols about staging that evening, including one which calls on paramedics to get regular scene safety updates from a dispatcher.

Asked if he would request such updates on a similar call today, Cornwell said: “I would demand.”

The inquest continues.