AN ambulance service blunder could have cost local residents their lives, it emerged this week. Bosses at Greater Manchester Ambulance Service (GMAS) sent a memo to Atherton crews telling them not to take patients to the Royal Bolton Hospital -- unless the situation was life-threatening. Residents claimed the order could have caused in-transit deaths. But GMAS said the memo was a clerical error. A spokesman said policy requires paramedics to use the "nearest and quickest" casualty department. The spokesman said the memo -- from a GMAS assistant manager -- had been withdrawn.