Greg Smith

I have initiated this Adjournment debate on behalf of my late constituent and his family. It concerns a tragic case that raises serious questions about emergency response, clinical training, information sharing, and whether the systems meant to save young lives are fit for purpose. On 31 January 2024, Adam Ankers, aged just 17, collapsed while playing football for the Wycombe Wanderers Foundation’s under-19 development team. He was a much-loved son, brother, friend and team-mate. He dreamed of a career in professional football, and on the captain’s armband that he was wearing that day he had written the words “strength, inspiration, leader, desire.” Despite the presence of first-aid-trained coaches, despite a defibrillator being brought straight to the pitch, and despite multiple calls to 999, no one recognised that Adam was in sudden cardiac arrest. No cardiopulmonary resuscitation was started. The coroner found that Adam’s brain had been was starved of oxygen for about eight minutes because no one had attempted CPR, and heard evidence that for every minute without CPR, the chances of survival decrease by 10%. South Central Ambulance Service’s serious incident review reached the same conclusion independently, acknowledging an eight-minute period in which CPR should have started and did not. The ambulance arrived within 11 minutes of the first 999 call, at 2.31 pm, but by then the critical window in which to act, having been led by telephone, had already been missed.