DAD Chris Taylor, 24, had to deliver his twin boys after an ambulance for his partner, Rachel Biston, 26, took almost 24 minutes to arrive.

Miss Biston suffers with cyclical vomiting and was in bed ill when she went into labour, two weeks premature, in Chipping Norton on January 21.

Mr Taylor was talked through delivering the twins, Alfie and Archie, by the ambulance service but one son was not breathing when he was born.

He said: “Archie was blue in the face when he was born. He was as good as dead.

“I didn’t know what to do, but I was talking to the paramedics and rubbing his back and then the mucus came up and he was awake and alive.

“The ambulance should have been here, but it wasn’t. It was a nightmare. Archie could have died.

“They have no response around here because they do not have any ambulances based in Chipping Norton.”

The ambulance service said it was called at 1.04am and dispatched the nearest ambulance, which was in Banbury, but snow and ice meant the journey took 23 minutes and 47 seconds.

The emergency was categorised as serious but not life-threatening and requiring a 19-minute response. It was not recategorised.

Two more ambulances were dispatched, one from Cirencester arriving at 2.19am and one from Banbury arriving at 1.37am.

SCAS spokesman James Keating-Wilkes said: “The extremely icy and snowy weather obviously had an impact.”

Both babies and their mother are now home and are doing well.