A Belturbet footballer faced an almost two-hour wait for an ambulance after breaking his leg while playing for Rory O’Moore’s GFC in their Senior Championship clash with Killeshandra in Butlersbridge on Thursday night.
Enda Henry, who had come on as a substitute late in the game, was injured shortly before 9pm.
When no ambulance had arrived by 10:30pm, club members drove him to Cavan General Hospital themselves.
The incident has renewed concern over ambulance response times in Cavan and Monaghan, where over 200 emergency cases in 2023 involved waits of more than an hour.
In response, the HSE said it cannot comment on individual cases but stated: "All 999/112 calls received for emergency medical assistance are prioritised using an internationally recognised system that triages calls based on clinical priority.
The National Ambulance Service (NAS) utilises this system to ensure the best use of resources by tasking the nearest available ambulance to the highest priority incident."
They added that calls for emergency service support via 999 have increased by over 25% since 2019, with the NAS responding to approximately 430,000 emergency calls in 2024 - up from 390,000 in 2023.
Rory O’Moore’s GFC shared a brief statement on social media following the incident: "We would like to wish our Senior forward Enda Henry the best in his recovery from his injury last night and thank the Butlersbridge officials and members of our club who acted quickly to assist him on the pitch also yesterday. We hope to see Enda back in a Rory's jersey soon."
