A paramedic responding to a “life-and-death” emergency begged police to let him through a Just Stop Oil protest.

Sixty activists from the eco group spent 30 minutes slow-marching on Waterloo Bridge on Wednesday morning, causing the busy carriageway to be shut in both directions for an hour.

An ambulance car soon arrived with blue lights and sirens but was held up in the gridlocked traffic for around 10 minutes.

The driver of the ambulance told The Telegraph: “I am responding to a life-and-death emergency - I am going to pick up a team from Guy’s hospital to save someone’s life at another hospital but can’t get through.”

He pleaded with police officers to let him through on multiple occasions as he became increasingly angry. Officers said they were working to let him through as quickly as they could as activists lay on the ground in the central reservation.

He was from the Guy’s and St Thomas’ ECMO Retrieval Team - standing for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation - which is a temporary life support system used for people whose lungs have stopped working properly.

Guy’s is one of just five centres for adult acute severe cardiorespiratory failure in England.