Thanks to Telstra, I make a false 000 Emergency call!

[JR.]

Thought I’d share with everyone a charming experience I had Friday night in the hopes that others will not go through the same panic that I did. This is really long (over 1000 word) post and I apologise, but I’m just so mad right now I have to get it off my chest.



First, a little bit of background:

I have an 83 year old grandmother with amongst other things a serious heart condition (that has resulted in past heart attacks and surgery). She also has arthritis, osteoporosis and a degenerative condition called Padgett’s (sp?) Disease.

When you combine all these problems, you can imaging that she’s not getting around the best now days, and is pretty much confined to the house when either my mother or I aren’t there to help her out.

Two weeks ago my uncle & his defacto took her out to dinner and while they were on their way his car was hit by a drunk driver (0.237). As you can imagine, the brittle old bones and frail body of an 83 year old woman didn’t take to kindly to the seatbelt compressing across her chest in the impact, and since being released from hospital early the morning after the accident she’s been having even more trouble moving around than usual and complaining of chest pains.

Now, Friday night:

So at 5:45pm last night, I get a call at work from my mother asking if I’ve spoken to my grandmother that afternoon. No, I haven’t.

We know she’s at home – alone – but she hasn’t been answering the phone for at least the past two hours my mother has been trying to ring. In peak hour Friday night traffic, it’s a 45 minute trip from the office to home, and I am closer than my mum.

You can imagine what I was thinking considering my grandmothers recent state of health, so as I frantically packed up to race home, I called 000 and asked for an ambulance.

I explained my grandmothers medical history and the fact that she SHOULD be answering the phone, and that I was gravely concerned for her welfare considering her heart condition, and the 000 operator agreed with me that this was a call of legitimate concern and that she’d dispatch an ambulance straight away.

I also asked her to dispatch the police, as in a previous medical emergency the ambulance crew had to wait outside the door for 10 critical minutes until I arrived with keys because they’re not allowed to break in someone’s door (but the Police can).

So I get off the phone to 000 and call mum to tell her the ambo is on the way. Then I get in my car and haul **** at WELL above the legal speed limit in a race to get home.

10 minutes later, I get a call back from the 000 dispatch service saying that I can slow down, everything is alright, she’s fine and just hadn’t put the phone back on the hook properly.

My relief and profound thanks was tempered by my embarrassment at wasting the time of the ambos and cops that had to respond to the emergency call. All told the ambo took under 8 minutes to arrive at the house with the Police seconds behind, and as someone who has an elderly relative in poor health who frequently requires their services, I can’t say enough about the job these guys do.

After calling mum and slowing her down too, I’m coming down of the adrenaline rush and realize that the home phone wouldn’t ring out if it was off the hook, it would just give you an engaged signal. This is a puzzling anomaly.

When I get home to find my mortified grandmother – poor old duck is sitting there minding her own business when suddenly ambos and cops started bashing on the front door – you can imagine my own horror to find out that TWO ambulances had responded and TWO two-man cop cars (in other words I’ve taken four cops and four paramedics out of service for nearly 25 minutes for no good reason).

So I check the home phone – no dial tone. I ask nan when she last used the phone (1pm) and if she saw anyone working in the phone pit on the sidewalk outside our house that day (yes, a Telstra van had been there in the afternoon).

So what it looks like is some useless Telstra service tech has been screwing around in the pit trying to fix someone else’s phone and disconnected ours by mistake – how, I don’t know, but to the outside world it was ringing out like no one was home to answer the call, but at home it was not ringing at all.

My question is this. How many other lives did Telstra’s actions endanger by setting off tat chain of events, and what if my grandmother really had been having a heart attack of some other problem and was trapped in the house with no other way to contact the outside world.

She’s unable to use a mobile phone – bad eyesight and poor manual dexterity – so that home phone is a critical lifeline for someone of her age in her health.

As you can image, the call I placed to Telstra service difficulties and faults after that was not my most coherent or polite exchange I’ve ever had – and now I’ve calmed down I’m quite appalled at the way I spoke to the poor bastard on the other end of the line, but this isn’t the first time it’s happened, and Telstra need to be held accountable for this sort of thing in a public arena.

This afternoon, a very contrite service tech came out and repaired the phone line (due to nan’s medical condition Telstra guarantee to repair any fault within 24 hours of it being reported), but that doesn’t absolve them of the fact that it happened at all.

Please excuse the huge nature of this rant, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more incensed with Telstra’s can’t give a stuff attitude than I am right now.


Cheers
JR