The death recently occurred of a much respected and loved Half Moon regular, Gordon Sunderland. His funeral at Yeovil attracted a massive turn-out on Monday 14 February. Probably the cleverest person in the bar (and that\u2019s saying something!), he was a former senior\u00a0 boffin at Plessey and\u00a0 a top man in the MOD at Portland. A very distinguished scientist, gentleman, raconteur and inbiber. We miss him.<\/p>\n
We send our sincere condolences to his two daughters and their families.<\/p>\n
His sad demise at the age of only 74 raises some serious concerns. This is what happened.<\/p>\n
One night in November last year he felt unwell. So unwell, he called an ambulance.<\/p>\n
When they arrived, he was upstairs, in bed (he lived alone).<\/p>\n
The ambulance crew refused to enter the premises, although he shouted down to them.<\/p>\n
Impasse.<\/p>\n
So he eventually and reluctantly agreed to come downstairs. In doing so, he fell, and broke his ankle. The ambulance crew carted him off to hospital In Yeovil.<\/p>\n
Since the accident he was in and out of hospital in Verrington, Yeovil and latterly Exeter, where he was waiting to have a skin graft, and, possibly the amputation of his foot, a daunting and frightening prospect.<\/p>\n
He died in Exeter of a heart attack on January 31st, just before his operation.<\/p>\n
On the face of it there is a clear chain of events between his initial call for an ambulance and his untimely death. We hope that the authorities launch an enquiry and review their procedures and rules.<\/p>\n
Many people live alone in the country. Some get ill. They will probably think twice before calling an ambulance.<\/p>\n
If anyone who knew Gordon well would like to write a fuller appreciation of his life and work, please get in touch -Ed<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The death recently occurred of a much respected and loved Half Moon regular, Gordon Sunderland. His funeral at Yeovil attracted a massive turn-out on Monday 14 February. Probably the cleverest person in the bar (and that\u2019s saying something!), he was a former senior\u00a0 boffin at Plessey and\u00a0 a top man in the MOD at Portland. … Continue reading “Gordon Sunderland -a tragic and uneccessary end?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2757],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6glYD-p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}