THE family of a girl fighting for her life after plunging from a wall have spoken of the frantic search for a hospital to treat her.

As reported in last night's BEN Symone Longworth, aged 11, of View Street, Daubhill, fell more than six feet from the wall while playing with friends on Saturday.

She was taken to Bolton Royal Infirmary but she needed to be transferred for specialist children's intensive care.

Eventually she was rushed by ambulance to Walton Hospital on Merseyside, arriving about four hours after the fall.

Symone's brother Kenneth Bromiley, 25, said: "We were obviously shocked and upset anyway and it didn't help when they had to ring round for a bed for her.

"Apparently they were talking about Pendlebury, Preston and Alder Hey before they sorted it out. "I don't blame the doctors and nurses though. They were great, I blame the government for not putting enough money in."

Symone was today heavily sedated in a "critical" condition in intensive care. As the full extent of the incident sunk in her family have also begun to question the safety of the wall.

Kenneth said: "I suppose she shouldn't really play on the wall but it seems very easy to climb up and has a very long drop at the other side." He said the family were planning to consult a solicitor about taking legal action.

No one was available at the house in Willows Lane where the wall surrounds a back yard. A spokesman for Bolton Hospitals said: "Bolton's hospitals, as in most general hospitals, do not have paediatric intensive care beds that are needed in this type of case.

"We made every effort to find an appropriate bed for this patient as quickly as possible. The first one we could find was in Walton."

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