Emergency call centre admits delay

Emergency call centre staff have admitted a nearly 40-minute delay in sending an ambulance to a boy involved in a fatal bicycle crash.

Keegan Lawrence, 14, fell and landed head-first while jumping his bike at Paremata, north of Wellington, on October 25, 2007.

A schoolboy on a passing train dialled 111 but an ambulance communications centre staff member sent only a police car to investigate.

When an ambulance finally arrived staff revived Keegan, but he died in Wellington Hospital the next day.