POLICE cars will no longer be used to escort ambulances to hospital following a crash last year which involved an Omagh patient.
Instead plans are being drawn up to make use of trained police motorcycle riders to accompany seriously ill patients enroute to hospitals throughout the North.
Josephine Murray, from Slieveard Court, was being transferred from the Erne Hospital in Enniskillen to the Royal Victoria Hospital last January when the ambulance she was travelling in overturned after colliding with a lorry near Brookeborough.
Mrs Murray had been diagnosed with swine flu a week earlier and was being transferred for specialist treatment in Belfast when the accident occurred. She later died from the illness.
A doctor travelling in the ambulance with her was seriously injured and two ambulance crew were also hurt in the collision.
The accident occurred as the emergency vehicles travelled along the A4 around 3.30pm on Wednesday, January 19 last year. A lorry pulled out onto the road after a gap developed between the police car and the ambulance.
A further four ambulances and two rapid response units were despatched to the scene of the accident and the police helpcopter was summoned but was not required.
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