On Wednesday, Telstra’s mobile network suffered a major outage across Australia, causing significant disruptions in communication.
A woman from South Australia recounted a distressing incident involving her elderly mother, who fell during the outage. The woman’s mother, an 89-year-old resident of western Victoria living with dementia, experienced a fall in public but refused assistance from bystanders.
Michelle Johnson, the daughter of the elderly woman, shared her concerns on 891 ABC Adelaide, explaining that a bystander had alerted the local community health center about her mother’s fall. Unfortunately, due to the network failure, medical personnel were unable to reach out to Ms. Johnson to inform her about her mother’s situation.
“She was too frightened to accept help,” Ms. Johnson stated. “Without the ability to communicate, I couldn’t advise her to accept medical attention or call for an ambulance.” It took several hours before any message could be relayed to her.
Ms. Johnson expressed her frustration with the support systems in place, noting that while her mother had services arranged for her safety at home, the outage rendered those systems ineffective. “This glitch completely disrupted everything,” she lamented. Fortunately, she confirmed that her mother was “doing fine” now.
In a parallel development, South Australia Police reported they had no knowledge of any fatalities connected to the Telstra outage, despite claims made by federal Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle the previous evening regarding a “tragic death” stemming from a failure to connect to emergency services.
The senator stated on social media that the incident represented a severe failure for the affected family, asserting that no one should be unable to reach emergency services when in dire need. However, police clarified that they were not aware of any such incidents on the day of the outage.
Acting Premier Kyam Maher criticized the senator’s comments, describing them as irresponsible and highlighting that there had been communication with authorities earlier that day. He also questioned why Senator Liddle did not relay her information to the police.
In response to Senator Liddle’s claims, a spokesperson indicated that the family involved should reach out to the authorities when they felt ready to discuss their experience.
Police Minister Michael Brown expressed his astonishment at the senator’s social media post and mentioned that police were looking into her allegations, although they had not received any information from her yet. He emphasized that while concerns over the outage were valid, spreading speculative information could pose dangers.
Meanwhile, SA Police confirmed they conducted over 300 welfare checks on individuals nationwide who were unable to contact emergency services during the outage, assuring that there were no outstanding welfare issues.
In related news, The Ghan, the renowned transcontinental train service, finally departed from Adelaide to Darwin Thursday morning after being delayed overnight due to the Telstra outage. Several passengers opted to leave early to avoid missing their planned itineraries, including two British travelers who incurred additional costs by choosing to fly instead.
Passengers reported a generally positive atmosphere onboard, despite the disappointment over the delays. A representative from Journey Beyond, the operator of The Ghan, confirmed that passengers affected by the delay were treated to a special event at the Adelaide terminal while awaiting departure. The Australian Rail Track Corporation had temporarily suspended all train operations earlier due to safety concerns linked to the outage, but announced that services were set to return to normal shortly thereafter.
