diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/avoid_KeyError_exception_during_wait.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/avoid_KeyError_exception_during_wait.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..24a2c2ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/avoid_KeyError_exception_during_wait.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+---
+bugfixes:
+- "Address a situation where the creation of a resource with ``wait: true`` was causing an exception in case of timeout (https://github.com/ansible-collections/amazon.cloud/pull/60)."
diff --git a/plugins/module_utils/core.py b/plugins/module_utils/core.py
index 2cb4e7b3..e9894f5e 100644
--- a/plugins/module_utils/core.py
+++ b/plugins/module_utils/core.py
@@ -105,8 +105,10 @@ def wait_until_resource_request_success(self, request_token: str):
                 WaiterConfig=self._waiter_config,
             )
         except botocore.exceptions.WaiterError as e:
+            progress_event = e.last_response["ProgressEvent"]
+            message = progress_event.get("StatusMessage") or progress_event.get("OperationStatus")
             self.module.fail_json_aws(
-                e.last_response["ProgressEvent"]["StatusMessage"],
+                message,
                 msg="Resource request failed to reach successful state",
             )
         except (