{"id":112202,"date":"2025-09-02T02:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T02:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/112202\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T02:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T02:54:11","slug":"nbl-player-ben-griscti-waited-90-minutes-for-ambulance-after-backboard-fell-on-him-at-canberras-ais-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/112202\/","title":{"rendered":"NBL player Ben Griscti waited 90 minutes for ambulance after backboard fell on him at Canberra’s AIS Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

A professional basketball player with suspected serious back injuries waited more than 90 minutes for an ambulance to arrive after a backboard collapsed on him during training.<\/p>\n

Adelaide 36ers player Ben Griscti was injured after a teammate’s dunk brought the structure down on top of him<\/a> at Canberra’s Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Arena on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old has now been ruled out of the start of the NBL season, after scans revealed he suffered a fractured vertebra.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The basketball hoop that collapsed at the AIS Arena injuring Ben Griscti. (X: CODE Basketball\/@codebballau\/Michael Randall)<\/p>\n

Griscti was left injured on the court for a total of 96 minutes after his team called an ambulance \u2014 despite the hospital he was transported to being a five-minute drive away.<\/p>\n

Responding to questions about the length of time it took to respond, ACT Ambulance Service chief officer David Dutton said that weekend sport could become a “pinch point” for demand.<\/p>\n

“There were a number of other emergencies in the territory at the time of that call,” he said.<\/p>\n

“As soon as we were able to dispatch a paramedic crew to that patient they attended, and they transported that patient in a stable condition through to the emergency department.”<\/p>\n

Mr Dutton said the case had been reviewed, and “it was appropriately triaged as a priority two response for ACT Ambulance \u2014 so that is a non-lights and sirens response”.<\/p>\n

Mr Dutton said the player was “conscious, alert and breathing the whole time” and was attended to by a team doctor while waiting for the ambulance.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Chief officer of the ACT Ambulance Service David Dutton says the incident was correctly triaged.\u00a0 (ABC News: Stuart Carnegie)<\/p>\n

However, following the initial emergency call, Mr Dutton said there were two call-backs to triple-0 from the team whilst they were waiting for the ambulance.<\/p>\n

“There was no change in the patient’s condition and therefore, no change to the priority of the ambulance response,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Anytime anyone is waiting for an ambulance or is waiting for healthcare, it feels like a long time.”<\/p>\n

The incident comes just weeks after ACT Ambulance Service had four stretchered vehicles in operation one night<\/a> \u2014 less than half the ideal number, according to Mr Dutton.<\/p>\n

Mr Dutton told the ABC at the time that they had been dealing with some short-notice unscheduled sick leave, and said he was hopeful vacancies within the paramedic service would be filled soon.<\/p>\n

No timeline for return to court<\/p>\n

Griscti has now returned home to Adelaide and, while the team has confirmed he won’t require surgery, a timeline for his return to the court isn’t clear.<\/p>\n

On Instagram, Griscti thanked his supporters “for the messages of support and concern. I’ll be back soon”.<\/p>\n

Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n

The incident happened as the 36ers were preparing to face the Tasmania JackJumpers in the pre-season NBL Blitz tournament being held in Canberra.<\/p>\n

The NBL said the “circumstances surrounding the incident will be investigated”.<\/p>\n

“The NBL is deeply saddened to learn Adelaide 36ers’ player, Ben Griscti, sustained a serious injury during training at the AIS Arena,” the league said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“The NBL has been in direct contact to offer support to Ben, his family and the Adelaide 36ers.<\/p>\n

“The welfare of all players and staff is our highest priority.”<\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Australian Sports Commission, the operator of AIS Arena, said it takes the matter “seriously” and “will be looking into the incident”.<\/p>\n

67,000 triple-0 calls for an ambulance\"An<\/p>\n

Griscti waited more than 90 minutes with a broken vertabrae for an ambulance to arrive at the AIS Arena. (ABC News: Kathleen Dyett)<\/p>\n

ACT Ambulance Service answered more than 67,000 emergency triple-0 calls during the last financial year.<\/p>\n

Mr Dutton said that paramedics responded to about half of those calls with lights and sirens, as a priority one response.<\/p>\n

“Every single one of those calls is \u2026 triaged according to the information the caller is able to provide to us, and to the questions that we ask, and then we prioritise these calls,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We are very focused as a system on treating the sickest patients first, so that does sometimes mean that people with less urgent conditions will wait longer for an ambulance or wait longer to be seen.”<\/p>\n

Ten qualified paramedics from interstate are due to start in Canberra in November.<\/p>\n

Mr Dutton urged Canberrans to be discerning about when they called triple-0.<\/p>\n

“When you’re using an ambulance for something that is not an emergency, you’re keeping it away from another Canberran,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A professional basketball player with suspected serious back injuries waited more than 90 minutes for an ambulance to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[80174,2666,48979,80175,80172,64,63,80171,726,48977,2667,39868,15057,80176,85,80173],"class_list":["post-112202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-90-minutes","tag-act","tag-adelaide-36ers","tag-ais","tag-ambluance","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-backboard","tag-basketball","tag-ben-griscti","tag-canberra","tag-collapse","tag-nbl","tag-north-canberra-hospital","tag-sports","tag-wait-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}