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Caffeine Overdose Fatal After Seven-Hour Ambulance Wait Unacceptable,

  • Christina Lackmann, a 32-year-old Melbourne woman, died in April 2021 from a caffeine overdose after waiting over seven hours for an ambulance to arrive at her Caulfield North home.
  • Her emergency call was initially downgraded but later upgraded to improve ambulance dispatch chances, yet two assigned ambulances were diverted to higher priority cases amid a large fleet ramping backlog.
  • Paramedics gained entry to her apartment just before 3 a.m., more than seven hours following her initial emergency call, and discovered her deceased in the bathroom with caffeine levels in her system that were dangerously high and likely fatal, stemming from tablets delivered earlier that day.
  • Coroner Catherine Fitzgerald stated the wait was "unacceptable" and concluded earlier treatment likely would have saved her, noting seven recommendations were made and all implemented by May 2025 to improve ambulance response times.
  • The case highlights how ambulance ramping, triage failures, and delays can have fatal consequences, emphasizing overdose preventability when early clinical intervention occurs.
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PerthNow broke the news in City of Perth, Australia on Monday, June 16, 2025.
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