Telstra chief apologises after Melbourne father dies amid triple-zero outage

Telstra’s boss has apologised to a Victorian family who lost a loved one amid a national triple-zero outage that delayed their call for help being passed on to paramedics.

Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady said a “technical incident” between 3.30am and 5am on Friday caused details for 148 callers to be emailed instead of being immediately transferred to the relevant emergency service – including for a Fitzroy man in his 50s who suffered a cardiac arrest and later died.

“Can I just first offer my deepest apology to the family of that person,” Brady said at the media conference in Sydney on Friday afternoon.

She said she hadn’t spoken to the family yet and Telstra was still investigating what caused the loss of inbound caller identification, which forced operators to manually forward some caller details to emergency service call-takers – be it police, fire or ambulance – for a call-back.

“We don’t yet understand how much the delay was and how much that impacted [the death],” she said. “But obviously, it’s unacceptable if there was any delay in getting that call through.”

Vicki Brady, Telstra’s CEO, speaks to reporters in Sydney on Friday afternoon.Credit: Ben Symons

Brady said the telco had followed back-up processes correctly, but added: “It is clear, from our preliminary review, that there are improvements that we can make in these processes.”

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, the industry watchdog, said it was undertaking an initial assessment of Telstra’s compliance with its obligations.

Danny Hill, the Victorian Ambulance Union secretary, told this masthead the outage caused chaos for paramedics. He confirmed the man who suffered a cardiac arrest was a father from Fitzroy and said his family called four times before getting through.

“It’s fairly clear that, yes, [the outage] played a role in the delay,” Hill said. “Whether it played a role in the outcome of the patient is impossible to know.”

Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Nearby paramedics were still able to respond quickly once notified, the union boss said, but were unable to resuscitate the patient.

After his death, a triple-zero operator called the family back asking if an ambulance was still needed. Hill said the caller would’ve been following up with those whose calls were initially delayed. The Fitzroy family then had to tell the operator the man had died.

“It’s tragic,” Hill said.

He called on the federal government and Telstra to urgently improve its back-up national triple-zero call-taking system.

“If that is the back-up system, it’s pretty bad,” Hill said. “It’s not safe. It can’t be relied upon. And there needs to be something to ensure that … people don’t come to harm when these [outages] occur.”

Normally, Telstra’s dispatchers are simply tasked with asking which emergency service a caller wants to speak with and what state they’re calling from.

Triple Zero Victoria – whose operators then ask for more detailed information – said it was told the Telstra triple-zero service disruption affected multiple states.

“Throughout the disruption, Telstra provided Triple Zero Victoria with the details of callers who were responded to as a matter of urgency,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Communication Workers Union secretary Sue Riley, who represents the triple-zero operators Telstra forwards calls to, told the ABC the telco’s dispatchers resorted to sending emails with phone numbers to emergency services.

Telstra’s dispatchers, who aren’t trained like Victoria’s triple-zero operators, captured as much information about each emergency as they could, but sometimes didn’t record basic details like an address, Riley said.

“I think everyone did the best they could in the circumstances,” Riley said, later adding: “[Telstra] are answerable to the public about this.”

During the 90-minute outage, Telstra’s chief executive said 494 triple-zero calls couldn’t be automatically forwarded as usual. Of those, 346 were transferred using a back-up method, and 148 had their details emailed to emergency services for a call-back.

Telstra CEO Vicki Brady said it was unacceptable if there was any delay in getting a call through as she apologised to the family of a man who died on Friday morning.Credit: Ben Symons

The outage was fixed after a server restart.

“I want to reinforce that triple-zero has our highest priority. We absolutely understand the critical role we play in this vital service to the Australian public,” Brady said.

“As I said, the investigation is under way and my commitment is that it is swift, thorough and forensic, and that we will share findings as we complete that investigation.”

Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the government was deeply saddened by the fatality during the outage.

In a statement, Rowland said she had sought information from Telstra about the extent of the disruption, and committed to a reliable emergency-call service.

“Whilst no service is 100 per cent immune from temporary disruption, measures must be identified to improve the resilience of the service and its backup processes,” she said.