Melbourne woman dies of caffeine overdose after emergency call ignored for over 7 hours
A 32-year-old woman in Melbourne died alone in her bathroom after a suspected caffeine overdose, all while waiting more than seven hours for emergency help that never came.
Coroner Catherine Fitzgerald delivered a damning report on Friday (13 June), stating that Ambulance Victoria’s failure to respond in time was “unacceptable”.
She added that had paramedics reached Ms Lackmann sooner, she may well have survived.
Woman calls emergency services to no avail
In April 2021, Christina Lackmann, an aspiring cancer researcher, dialled emergency services from her flat in Caulfield North, reporting dizziness, numbness, and being unable to get up from the bathroom floor.
Despite the clear signs of medical distress, her call was labelled Code 3, a non-urgent priority, meaning it was pushed to secondary clinical triage, according to Australia’s news outlet 9news.
Compounding the problem, call-takers were unable to transfer her to a health practitioner for further assessment, and she was told to keep her phone line free for a callback.
Over the following hour, Ambulance Victoria staff tried to call her back 14 times and sent one text message — all of which went unanswered.
Source: Daily Mail
Her call priority was eventually upgraded, but two ambulances that had been assigned to her were diverted to more urgent cases.
Paramedics didn’t gain access to her flat until just before 3am, more than seven hours after her first distress call.
She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Caffeine tablets believed to be cause of overdose
An email found on Ms Lackmann’s phone revealed she had ordered caffeine tablets from iHerb, which were delivered to her home that same day.
Although authorities searched her apartment, no tablets or packaging were found. However, toxicological analysis later confirmed a dangerously high concentration of caffeine in her bloodstream and stomach contents.
According to a doctor at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, the level of caffeine in her body could not have come from just drinking coffee.
Woman could have survived overdose
Associate Professor Narendra Gunja, a specialist in forensic toxicology, said that caffeine overdoses can turn fatal within eight hours. If Ms Lackmann had reached the hospital, she likely would have been asked what she had taken and then treated accordingly.
He added, “It’s likely she would have survived the overdose had she received timely care.”
Still, the exact timing of her death remains unclear, as the amount and time of ingestion could not be determined.
Ambulance service under fire amid ramping crisis
Coroner Catherine Fitzgerald was sharply critical of Ambulance Victoria’s inability to respond, blaming the delay in part on “ramping” — a crisis in which ambulances are forced to queue outside overwhelmed emergency departments, unable to offload patients.
More than 80 per cent of the state’s ambulance fleet was reportedly ramped on the night Ms Lackmann died.
Source: 9News
Ambulance Victoria has since conducted an internal review and says it is working with the Department of Health to improve emergency response systems and reduce ramping delays.
Victoria’s benchmark requires 90 per cent of ambulance patients to be transferred into emergency care within 40 minutes, yet the most recent data shows only 69.6 per cent met that standard, with the median wait time in March sitting at 26 minutes.
Under pressure to improve, hospitals are now required to deliver a 4% improvement in offload times by the end of June.
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22-year-old man from Australia wins S$18M lottery, dies years later due to drug abuse
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Featured image adapted from Daily Mail and 9News.
Woman in Australia dies of caffeine overdose while waiting over 7 hours for ambulance
