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A Taranaki doctor who raced to a Hawera church service on Sunday found his mother-in-law had collapsed and the priest had performed the last rites.
She collapsed at Sunday's 9am Mass at St Joseph's Catholic Church, but was not as serious as feared, due to low blood pressure, not a heart attack.
"When I arrived there, the priest was giving her the last rites before continuing with the service. I looked down at her and recognised my mother-in-law," Erwin Eloff told the Taranaki Daily News.
"You can't buy that sort of a drama."
Luckily, nurses Erin Keegan and Annie Dombroski were at the Mass and attended to the woman, but a 30-minute wait for an ambulance annoyed Dr Eloff.
Both Hawera ambulances were out of town on other jobs, but the ambulance communications centre in Wellington did not say that. An ambulance eventually arrived from a Patea callout.
All Taranaki ambulance calls are handled at a national centre in Wellington.
Dr Eloff said it would have been quicker to transport the patient by car.
National ambulance communications centre director Tony Blaber told the newspaper that when a patient's condition was classified as serious the centre does not ask callers to arrange transport by car to hospital, as this can be dangerous.
- NZPA
