A Melbourne woman who waited more than seven hours for an ambulance died alone in her apartment from a caffeine overdose, despite calling for help the night before.
Christina Lackmann, 32, contacted emergency services from her Caulfield North home on April 20, 2021, describing symptoms including dizziness, numbness, and feeling light-headed. She was found dead the next morning.
Coroner Catherine Fitzgerald found the aspiring cancer researcher would likely have survived had paramedics arrived sooner.
Ms Lackmann made a triple zero call at 7.49pm, telling a handler she was feeling unwell and was unable to get up from the floor.
The coroner has highlighted problems with the response to the call, including not transferring Ms Lackmann to a health practitioner for further assessment.
At no point did she disclose she had taken caffeine tablets and was categorised as a non-acute/non-urgent Code 3.
She was told to keep her phone line free and Ambulance Victoria staff attempted to call her back 14 times.
Ms Lackmann was also sent one text but all attempts to contact her were left unanswered.
Christina Lackmann (pictured) died in the early hours of April 22, 2021 after calling for help the previous evening when she felt sick, dizzy and was unable to get up off the floor
Caffeine tablets were delivered to Ms Lackmann’s apartment on the same day she made the triple-zero call. The tablets nor their packaging was found in the apartment (stock)
Ms Lackmann, who was studying for her final semester of a biomedical sciences degree, had called her mother Beate Lackmann earlier in the evening, but she was unable to answer the call.
Beate told the inquest she attempted to call her daughter back at 6.30pm. She did not answer but told her mum she was ‘ok’ during a text exchange.
Her case priority was upgraded an hour after her triple-zero call, which should have improved her chances of having an ambulance dispatched imminently.
However, two ambulances that were subsequently assigned to her were diverted to greater-priority cases.
Seven hours and 11 minutes after her call for help , paramedics gained access to Ms Lackmann’s apartment shortly before 3am.
She was pronounced dead soon after having died alone on her bathroom room.
It was later discovered via an email on Ms Lackmann’s phone that she an iHerb order of caffeine tablets had been delivered to her apartment on the day she made the triple-zero call.
Ms Lackmann (pictured with her mother Beate Lackmann) did not respond to Ambulance Victoria staff’s 14 attempts to call her back following her initial triple-zero call
The tablets nor their packaging was found in the apartment.
A post-mortem found Ms Lackmann had ingested a very high concentration of caffeine.
Associate Professor Narendra Gunja, a specialist medical practitioner in clinical and forensic toxicology, said caffeine overdoses can become fatal within eight hours of ingestion.
He said if paramedics had been dispatched to Ms Lackmann and she had been hospitalised soon after her call for help, she would have likely received proper medical treatment.
Ms Lackmann would likely have been asked what she had ingested and treated for a caffeine overdose.
He said he was unable to suggest an exact time when her death was preventable because it was not clear when Ms Lackmann took the tablets nor how large the dose was.
The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine’s chief toxicologist, Dimitri Gerostamoulos, said the concentration of caffeine found in Ms Lackmann’s blood could not be achieved by drinking coffee.
Ms Fitzgerald slammed Ambulance Victoria in her ruling and said the wait time was ‘unacceptable’, with 80 per cent of their vehicles unable to respond to emergencies as they were ramped up at hospitals.
Ambulance ramping involves paramedics being forced to wait to offload patients at emergency departments.
Following the inquest, Ambulance Victoria undertook an internal review and made changes to its procedures.
