A Carlow minor footballer was subjected to a seven-hour wait for treatment on a broken leg.

Shane Webb fractured his leg in two places while playing in Wednesday night's Leinster MFC against Westmeath at Dr Cullen Park.

An ambulance was called at 8:05pm and the player was removed from the pitch to the medical room at the county grounds.

As there was no ambulance available in Carlow, one was dispatched from Portlaoise and took close to an hour to arrive.

Webb was taken to St Luke's in Kilkenny and had an x-ray but was told he had to be moved to Waterford due to the nature of the breaks.

The second ambulance was dispatched from Dublin but was diverted at Naas due to another emergency call.

The third ambulance called was ironically sent from Carlow! The footballer arrived in Waterford at 3am and underwent an operation at 2:30pm on Thursday.

His uncle, Independent councillor Walter Lacey comments in The Examiner: "They brought him on to St Luke's in Kilkenny where he was assessed and told they were transferring him to Waterford.

"His family were told there was an ambulance coming from Dublin to take him there. But that ambulance got diverted because there was a cardiac arrest case in Naas. We've no difficulty with that because he was in St Luke's at that stage. But then they found they were able to send an ambulance from Carlow to Waterford. Why didn't they do that in the first place?" Tweet

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