A woman who was left writhing in agony in a field after breaking her leg while out walking her dog waited up to an hour for an ambulance.

Jessie Bishop was near to Fron Castell in Llangollen when she went over. A resident who found her contacted local councillor Stuart Davies, who lives nearby, and he phoned an ambulance.

Cllr Stu Davies rang 999, but says he was told that a bottleneck of ambulances at Wrexham Maelor hospital meant there was nothing immediately available.

He and his wife - a first aider - were able to try to comfort Mrs Bishop - who is in her early 50s - while they waited for paramedics to show.

Cllr Davies said he feared that Mrs Bishop - who is diabetic - may have taken a turn for the worse because she had been unable to eat or drink anything while lying on the ground in agonising pain.

And today he hit out at the wait she had to endure, arguing that when he and other councillors had grilled Welsh Ambulance Service bosses in the past over waiting times for paramedics, the situation at Wrexham Maelor had been given as a reason then.

He said it seemed nothing had changed, adding: “They seem to be deciding that if it’s not life-or-death then they are OK to be left lying in a muddy field screaming in pain.”

Sonia Thompson, Head of Operations for North Wales, said: “We appreciate that this would have been an uncomfortable wait and we apologise for the experience this patient had.

“We received a call at about 6.05pm on Thursday to reports that a woman had fallen and sustained an injury in Fron Bach, Llangollen, this call was treated as an emergency but was not prioritised as being life threatening.

“We sent a crew in an emergency ambulance, who arrived at the scene within 53 minutes, and during this period the patient’s condition was being monitored by one of the clinicians in our Clinical Contact Centre.

“At the time of the call all of our available ambulances were either committed to other patients in the community or handing over at hospitals, including Wrexham Maelor Hospital, where we experienced handover delays on Thursday.

“We thank Cllr Davies for bringing this matter to our attention and should the patient wish to discuss her care further with us we are of course happy to do this. In the meantime we would like to send her our best wishes for her recovery.”