The day after a national telephone outage that prevented Optus customers from dialling the Triple Zero (000) emergency number, a Brisbane woman using the same network was able to contact police despite calling the wrong number.
Optus customer Liesl Taylor dialled 911, the emergency number used in the United States and Canada, by mistake on 19 September, but was still put through to emergency services.
She was trying to help a distressed man who approached her on a train, asking if she could call the police, just before she got off on the evening of 19 September this year.
A day earlier, about 600 calls to the Triple Zero (000) national emergency services number failed due to a technical fault on the Optus network, resulting in the death of at least four people.
Optus, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel), apologised for the failure and said the technical failure had been rectified.
“I tapped in 911 without even thinking about it and I got straight through,” Taylor told Azzet.
“I was tired. I had been up since 5 o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t deliberate thing. I have never had to call Triple Zero before in my life. It was 9.30 pm by then.”
She dialled the same number a second time after police failed to arrive in response to her first call.
When the man looked at the phone and noticed she had dialled 911, she realised her mistake.
“That’s when I went ‘Oh my God, how have I done that’. To have done it twice, it’s not my proudest moment. It was just exhaustion and I wasn’t thinking,” Taylor said.
“Other than being appalled at my own stupidity I was relieved to know that if people do call that number, because you hear 911 with American TV shows all the time, it’s still going to connect with Triple Zero.
“I hope he got the help he was needing.”
An Optus spokesperson said customers should contact Triple Zero (000) in an emergency, as this was the primary number for emergency services in Australia.