Finding into death of Nick Panagiotopoulos

47y · Male·Acute myocardial infarction due to thrombotic occlusion of the right coronary artery and coronary artery atherosclerosis

Nick Panagiotopoulos, a 47-year-old man, suffered a fatal acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) on 16 October 2021 at home in Preston, Victoria. His family made five calls to Triple Zero (000) requesting emergency ambulance assistance, but experienced severe delays of more than 16 minutes before the first call was answered by an ambulance call-taker. During this critical period, Nick suffered cardiac arrest. Although paramedics ultimately arrived, he was in asystolic cardiac arrest with virtually no chance of survival. Expert evidence indicated that if emergency services had been dispatched promptly—within seconds to a few minutes of his first call—Nick's chance of survival would have been 'almost a hundred per cent' or at minimum 'good'. The delays were attributable to the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) being overwhelmed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite having forecasted increased ambulance demand from March 2020, ESTA failed to proactively recruit additional call-takers and only escalated concerns in October 2021 when the crisis became entrenched. The coroner found that ESTA should have requested urgent government funding for staff recruitment from March 2020 onwards, and that Nick's death was preventable.