The ambulance technician currently training to be a paramedic, who asked not to be named, said conditions had worsened so much they were questioning their future in the service.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service Chief Executive Peter Reading said they deeply regretted harm to patients due to handover delays at A&E and they were working to ease difficulties faced by staff.
A spokesperson for York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs York Hospital, said they were working to try and speed up handovers so ambulance crews could serve communities effectively.
It comes as a GMB trade union poll of UK ambulance workers found about one in four had seen patients die due to delays in the last three years.
A third knew of a case where it had happened while 43 per cent said they had spent an entire shift waiting outside A&E.
The entrance to York Hospital, off Wigginton Road. Picture: Google Street View
More than four fifths, 83 per cent, reported being verbally abused on the job while a third said they had been physically assaulted.
Almost three quarters, 70 per cent, said they had considered leaving the service.
GMB National Secretary Rachel Harrison said the statistics and harrowing stories from ambulance workers had laid the state of the NHS bare.
The York-based worker who spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service said things had deteriorated markedly in their six years on ambulances and 20 years in the NHS.
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They added they and others felt the pressure being put on them was not receiving enough attention from those at the top of the NHS.
The trainee paramedic said: “We have delays on a daily basis at York Hospital, we’re sometimes queuing for hours on end and we spend a lot of time looking after patients.
“I’ve injured my back trying to stop a patient with dementia from falling while also looking after three others.
“I’ve seen patients die, there was one who was left waiting on a stretcher after having a stroke and he just crashed and had a cardiac arrest.
“The problem is that if patients are left for a long time then they decline and their conditions can become acute and then they need to go into intensive care.
“I’ve been in the service for six years but what’s happening now is making me question my future in it.
“Morale is pretty low, the coronavirus pandemic was horrendous and now people are overwhelmed, stressed and more of them are going off sick or leaving the profession.
“Ambulance response times have doubled or even tripled because we spend so much time waiting or being used as an arm of the GPs or mental health services.
“There’s people calling 999 because someone’s having a cardiac arrest and we’re having to get ambulances from out of the area to come because there’s none available here to to respond.
“I have been verbally abused and physically abused once, I know colleagues who’ve been assaulted.
“But I don’t tend to take it personally because it’s often people who are frustrated at how long they’ve been waiting and the person they’re calling about isn’t well at all.”
Yorkshire Ambulance Service Chief Executive Dr Reading said ambulance workers should receive the respect they deserve and appalling attacks on them could have significant, lasting impacts.
The chief executive said: “We acknowledge that the situation at many hospital emergency departments remains challenging and we continue to work with our partners to address handover delays, as well as reduce waiting times for those needing an emergency ambulance response in our communities.
“Our staff are here to help people when they are most in need and, very sadly, they have to deal with the possibility of violence, aggression and abuse every time they are at work.
“Despite this, ambulance service colleagues continue to show dedication in turning up for work to care for patients and serving their local communities.”
