TACLOBAN CITY — A grieving mother has blamed delays in emergency medical transport and the poor condition of a major road in Samar for the death of her 10-year-old son, whose story has since gone viral on social media.

"Dayne, I am so sorry the system failed us," the mother wrote in a Facebook post a week after the incident.

She said she brought her son to a hospital in Catbalogan City at around 8 a.m. on July 11 after he developed a fever, difficulty breathing, and later suffered a seizure.

The child was intubated, but doctors recommended that he be transferred to a hospital in Tacloban City with an intensive care unit, more than 100 kilometers away.

According to the mother, no ambulance driver was immediately available, and she was also told they needed to pay ₱15,000 for the transfer.

"Your life was hanging by a thread, pero pera pa rin ang inuuna nila," she wrote.

Seeking help, relatives went to the city government but were told the ambulance was undergoing an oil change. They also sought assistance from the Bureau of Fire Protection but were informed its ambulance could not travel outside the city. At the Samar Provincial Hospital, they were allegedly told there was no available ambulance driver.

It was nearly noon before an ambulance driver and a nurse became available.

"Those wasted hours could have saved my son's life," the mother said.

The ordeal continued during the trip to Tacloban when the child's breathing tube became dislodged due to the rough condition of the Maharlika Highway.

The ambulance stopped in Calbiga and later in Pinabacdao in search of a doctor who could reinsert the tube, but none was available in either town.

The child was declared dead on arrival upon reaching Tacloban.

The incident occurred more than a month after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. inspected the Samar section of the Maharlika Highway on June 5, where Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon said improvements had reduced travel time between Catbalogan City and Tacloban City from three hours to one hour and 45 minutes.