A YOUNG rugby player from Torfaen lay in pain and shock for almost two hours waiting for an ambulance that never came.

Sam Allaway's ordeal after being injured playing for Talywain under-13s is the second such incident the Argus has reported in the last week. On the same weekend New Panteg Youth player James Pearce endured a similar agonising wait.

Do these incidents - allied to figures showing ambulance response times in Torfaen and Monmouthshire to be the second and third worst in Wales, and paramedics' fears that overtime restrictions are putting lives at risk - indicate a service in crisis?

We asked the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust what it is doing to put things right - but no-one from the trust would talk to us.

But politicians, patients' families and ambulance staff are all demanding answers.

Read our special report in today's Argus.