AN AMBULANCE woman fought back tears as she told an inquest she had directed her vehicle to the wrong nursery.

Ambulance technician Nina Eigenmann yesterday told a jury she had been aboard the emergency ambulance dispatched to help toddler Adam Milner.

But it took five minutes longer than it should have because the crew went to the wrong nursery.

The two-year-old died four days after choking on a piece of sausage at Portland House Nursery in New Hey Road, Lindley, on August 19, 2009.

A verdict for Adam’s death will be decided by a jury at Bradford Coroner’s Court.

Ms Eigenmann yesterday agreed with a suggestion made by counsel Nick Johnson, representing the Milner family, that the ambulance could have been at the nursery within three minutes of the 999 call.

Huddersfield ambulance station, Westbourne Road, is less than one mile up the A640 from Portland House.

But the ambulance took eight minutes to arrive because it had accidently gone to a nursery on Portland Street – half a mile in the opposite direction, on the edge of Huddersfield town centre.

Ms Eigenmann said: “I thought I knew where the nursery was and the reason why I thought that was before I went on leave I went on a detail to Portland Street and I saw a nursery opposite.

“I got the instinct it was a serious job and we set off straight away.”

Ms Eigenmann said on arrival at the Portland Street nursery she realised it was the wrong address and set off for Portland House.

The system for sending addresses from the control room to ambulances would not always work, the inquest heard earlier yesterday.

The ambulance technician told the court neither she nor her co-technician aboard the ambulance had been able to remove the food from Adam’s airways.

After attempting to clear the blockage the ambulance took the toddler to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary where the sausage was removed by medics using forceps.

The court also heard a recording of the distressing 999 call made from Portland House.

The call is full of background noise and both the caller and operator struggle to hear each other.

One can hear the caller relaying instructions from the operator to another member of staff who is trying to help clear the blockage in the toddler’s airways.

The operator tells the caller, who stresses repeatedly the urgency for an ambulance, that she is not ‘delaying the help’.

Adam died after his parents made the decision to switch off his life-support machine.