Heart attack pensioner dies after thugs block his ambulance

They even threatened to attack paramedics trying to save 84-year-old Norman Bell, who had collapsed with a heart attack.

Witnesses said the youths refused to move a motorcycle parked in front of the ambulance, threw stones at the crew and hammered on the side of the vehicle, which was delayed for around five minutes.

The paramedics managed to resuscitate Mr Bell on the way to hospital, but he never regained consciousness and died within hours.

Yesterday his devastated family hit out at the mindless behaviour of the youths and said they would never know if grandfather Mr Bell might still be alive had the ambulance not been delayed.

The retired engineer, from Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, was active for his age and played bowls three times a week. He was taking part in an away match in Ashtonin-Makerfield, near Wigan.

Fellow players dialled 999 and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while they waited for an ambulance. But as it was leaving, one youth blocked the single carriageway track with a motorbike. When the paramedics asked him to move it, he and two friends threatened to attack them.

Mr Bell's friends and teammates were also taunted and abused as they tried to follow by car. Witnesses said the youths appeared to be either drunk or on drugs.

Mr Bell's son Peter, 54, headmaster of a primary school in Leeds, said last night: "This is extremely distressing for us. How could anyone be so reckless and unthinking? There has to be a possibility my father would have survived if he had got to hospital a few minutes earlier, which would mean these teenagers contributed to his death. That is going to be hard to come to terms with."

Mr Bell had lived in Newtonle-Willows all his life and was a reservist fire warden during the Second World War. In the 1940s he played for Wigan rugby league club and he spent nearly 50 years as an engineering inspector with a biscuit firm.

His wife Lilian died 16 years ago, but he had found renewed happiness with widow Irene Harris, 85. She said: "It's absolutely terrible. Even if they didn't realise how ill he was, what were they thinking?"

Mr Bell was the longestserving player on the Viaduct Social Club bowls team. Committee member Lewis Chadwick, 65, said he was still extremely fit, often running out on to the green.

Delwyn Wray, area director for the North West Ambulance Service, said attacks and abuse are a daily occurrence for crews, with 412 incidents in the area last year.

Police are trying to trace the youths involved in last Thursday's attack.