Hundreds of emergency calls were left waiting for hours without a response after a major city’s capabilities reached a ‘critical failure point’.

Residents of Darwin in need of urgent help were left waiting for up to five hours while others were totally ignored between midnight and 7am on Saturday. 

A total of 29 life-threatening or urgent emergencies had their responses delayed for hours while another 61 Triple Zero calls were abandoned by ambulance service staff.

St John Ambulance Northern Territory chief executive Abigail Trewin said the department was at ‘operational capacity white’. 

Operational capacity white is used to describe a situation where there is a ‘critical system failure point where service demand cannot be met despite all mitigation strategies’. 

It highlights a situation where there is imminent danger to patients or staff and a ‘significant risk to service continuity and organisational reputation’. 

It was the first time Darwin’s midnight capacities were stretched so thin in the city’s history.

For the calls which were abandoned, they were left ringing for a matter of 10 seconds before being automatically diverted to Telstra.

Hundreds of emergency calls went unanswered overnight in Darwin on Saturday 

A total of 29 life-threatening or urgent emergencies had their responses delayed for hours while another 61 Triple Zero calls were abandoned by ambulance service staff

Ms Trewin stressed that nobody died due to the delays but that patients’ conditions were left to diminish while waiting.

‘Police held the scene at one of those jobs last night until the ambulance could arrive and that patient certainly deteriorated over 35 minutes that they waited and that’s just not OK,’ she told NT News.

‘It’s not normal for that to happen, and you want an ambulance service to arrive to make a difference when it counts.’

During the midnight period there were 14 priority one, life-threatening cases that could not be attended to within 15 minutes.

That is the standard maximum time permitted by the paramedic service.

One of the calls was left waiting for more than five hours before being cared for.

Fifteen more priority two cases, which require a 30 minute-or-less response, were also unable to be seen within their permitted times. 

At Royal Darwin Hospital, delays offloading patients lasted more than 60 minutes and ambulance crews were required to work for 10 hours to fulfil the department’s needs.

St John Ambulance Northern Territory chief executive Abigail Trewin said it was the worst night in the city’s history for Triple Zero calls

Ms Trewin said Friday night was an ‘extraordinary event’ which exceeded her staff’s capabilities.

‘We just simply could not get to every call that came out,’ she said.

‘We have five ambulances in Darwin and Palmerston, so when you receive that many calls and have that many priority one cases, it’s devastating for just the call centre to be able to stay on the line and talk someone through that emergency, but know that it’s going to take hours before an ambulance can arrive.’

In Alice Springs during the same period, four priority one, life-threatening emergencies were left outstanding for more than one hour each.

At one call St John did attend, a female paramedic was punched in the face by a patient, requiring treatment for her injuries. 

The incident rate in the state is 245 per 1,000 people, higher than the national rate of 164. 

Nationally the target to respond to these calls is 8-15 minutes but during 2024-25, paramedics in the NT averaged a response time of 18.3 minutes.