Man left bleeding for almost two hours waiting for ambulance in Adelaide

An 80-year-old man who injured himself falling down stairs was left waiting almost two hours for an ambulance in Adelaide.

Edward Church fell down the front steps of his daughter Sarah's Hackham West home on November 3.

Left bleeding from two gashes to his head, he was told help was on its way at 3.32pm.

"It was quite a hot day, he was out on the concrete, in the sun, and the ambulance told me to not give him anything to eat or drink and to not move him," Sarah told 9News.

Mr Church was first triaged as priority five, which doesn't have a target response time.

An hour later, Sarah called again, and her father was upgraded to priority two, which aims to have paramedics on the scene in 16 minutes.

But no ambulance came.

"We just waited and waited, and I just thought, at some point I'm going to have to get him to the hospital myself," Sarah said.

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After one hour and 45 minutes, Sarah gave up waiting, and called to cancel the ambulance.

"I pulled the car around as close as I could get to him, I picked him up off the ground as best I could, and I got him in the car and went to the hospital," she said.

"I think back now, how long would we have waited for? When does my dad become important?"

On November 2 and 3, the ambulance union claimed 93 Triple Zero cases went unanswered, and at one point 16 ambulances were ramped at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Sarah said her dad was now fit and well, but he deserved better on the day.

"The system is broken, and this is not the ambulance drivers' fault," she said.

"This comes higher up."