A CYCLIST who collapsed at the side of the road during a charity ride died after waiting an hour for an ambulance, an inquest heard yesterday.

Patrick Royle, 31, passed out in Hollow Way, Cowley, Oxford, after suffering heatstroke while taking part in a London-Oxford charity bike ride in July, 2006, Oxford Coroner's Court was told.

The inquest heard that a passerby called the ambulance service, saying that Mr Royle was staggering along the road and had then fallen into a bush.

But the call was wrongly classed as a non-emergency and it took half an hour before a paramedic arrived - shortly before Mr Royle suffered a cardiac arrest.

Ambulance staff then managed to get a crew, which had been at lunch. They were unaware that a British Red Cross ambulance was waiting two miles away.

The inquest heard that by the time an ambulance arrived, Mr Royle was dead.

PC Charlotte Desborough, who was first on the scene, told the inquest she became increasingly frustrated that an ambulance had not arrived.

She said: "I believe if an ambulance had got there quicker, he might have had a chance."

Paramedic Ashley De Havillande arrived in a car which could not take patients to hospital and gave emergency treatment for 30 minutes after Mr Royle stopped breathing.

He said: "It wasn't an ideal situation for long resuscitation in that environment. Ideally, I wanted to get him to hospital. As far as I'm aware, it would take a blue light ambulance between four and five minutes from the John Radcliffe Hospital."

The inquest heard only nine ambulances were on duty - normally 12 were on duty. Eight were answering emergency calls, and one crew was at lunch.

The crew at lunch was mobilised after 5pm. An internal inquiry by South Central Ambulance Trust ruled that the call handler incorrectly classed the emergency call as grade three - the least serious. Changes have now been made to monitor call-outs and the call handler is no longer employed.

David Williams, head of ambulance operations, said it was down to human error.

He said: "The reason it was graded as it was, was a result of information put into a computer. The information entered by the call handler led her down the wrong path - what can only be described as incorrect categorisation."

Pathologist Nicholas Hunt told the inquest that Mr Royle showed signs of dehydration, and the possible cause of his death was heatstroke.

He added: "It is a possibility he could have survived if an ambulance had been there within 15 minutes."

The charity ride organisers had three ambulances along the course between London and Oxford, including a Red Cross crew two miles away when Mr Royle collapsed.

William McQuaid, of organisers Events Bikes, said the crew could have arrived in five minutes, but was not alerted by the ambulance service.

It eventually passed by and was flagged down by police to help.

Coroner Richard Whittington adjourned the inquest, asking for more evidence from the British Red Cross and ambulance service to explain why the nearby crew had not been called to take Mr Royle to hospital.

Mr Royle, of Merton, Surrey, leaves a widow Jennie and daughter Chloe. No date has been set for the inquest to be completed.