Ambulance bosses have launched an inquiry into how paramedics were sent to a town 51 miles from the scene of an emergency, it has emerged.

While they drove to the wrong place, a 14-year-old girl stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated, it was reported.

A control room operator sent the ambulance to Grove in Leighton Buzzard, Beds, while the teenager waited in Grove, near Wantage in Oxfordshire.

A spokeswoman for South Central Ambulance Service, which covers Oxfordshire, apologised for the mistake, claiming a mix-up in the control room was to blame.

"We are obviously very sorry about that and having an investigation to find out why that happened," she said.

"We are fortunate in this case that she is all right, but that isn't any reason to dispatch an ambulance to the wrong place."

The girl, who had drunk too much vodka, reportedly stopped breathing during the hour-long wait.

A Police Community Support Officer is thought to have resuscitated her.

Oxfordshire's ambulance service merged with the three other counties in July 2006, despite local pressure against the move.

Wantage MP Ed Vaizey said he feared "centralisation" was a factor.