All articles tagged with #emergency calls
Hawaii is experiencing a surge in flu cases, leading to increased 911 calls and emergency room visits, straining healthcare resources. Health officials recommend vaccination, staying home when sick, and early treatment to prevent severe illness and reduce the burden on emergency services amid a global rise in influenza, particularly a new strain, influenza A (H3N2).
An Optus firewall upgrade in Australia led to a 14-hour outage of emergency calls to 000, resulting in the deaths of three customers who may have been seeking help. The company is investigating why procedures were not followed and has promised to improve escalation processes. The incident has drawn criticism from Australian politicians, highlighting concerns over telecom safety and reliability.
Verizon experienced a widespread outage causing many users' phones to enter SOS mode, which restricts service to emergency calls. The outage was reported since early afternoon, with users across multiple states expressing frustration on social media. Troubleshooting steps include toggling airplane mode, restarting devices, updating carrier settings, and contacting Verizon support if issues persist.
Emergency calls from inside the controversial Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center reveal medical emergencies, procedural confusion, and numerous accidental calls, raising concerns about conditions and transparency at the facility, which has faced lawsuits and limited oversight.
Frantic 911 calls from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) captured the panic as a shooting unfolded, leaving three professors dead and another person wounded. The audio recordings revealed witnesses describing an unfamiliar man on the fourth floor of Beam Hall, where the shooting began before the gunman moved to other floors. The shooter, identified as Anthony Polito, a former professor, was confronted and shot by responding officers. The victims were identified as Cha-Jan "Jerry" Chang, Patricia Navarro-Velez, and Naoko Takemaru. Dispatchers attempted to keep callers calm and offered guidance while assuring them that help was on the way.
First responders, including EMTs, paramedics, and 911 dispatchers, share their wild and sometimes chilling stories from the field. These stories range from encountering peeping toms circling a house, dealing with drunk and aggressive individuals, trying to save a life while being verbally attacked by a police officer, providing CPR instructions over the phone, responding to a home invasion, witnessing mistreatment of elderly individuals, and more. These accounts highlight the challenging and often traumatic experiences faced by first responders, emphasizing the importance of mental health support in the field.
Maryland officials confirm that the issue affecting Verizon Wireless customers' ability to place emergency calls has been resolved after a regional disruption of 911 services in Montgomery, Prince George's, and Charles counties. Customers in affected areas were automatically rerouted to the 911 center's administrative lines while engineers worked to resolve the issue.
An apparent Android phone operating system update has caused thousands of accidental 911 calls in Anoka County, with nearly twice as many 911 "hangups" received in recent weeks. Android's safety feature, which dials an emergency call if a phone's power button is pushed five times in a row, is believed to be the cause. Authorities are asking users to turn off the Emergency SOS feature if they don't need it and to not ignore accidental 911 calls, as they are treated as potential threatening situations.
A Whole Foods store in San Francisco closed after just over a year in business due to a high number of emergency calls, including incidents of violence, drug use, and theft. Records show that there were 568 emergency calls to the store over 13 months, with incidents including vagrants throwing food, fights, and attempts to defecate on the floor. At least 14 people were arrested during the store's operation, and criminals were seen emerging from the store with large quantities of alcohol. The store cut its operating hours in October amid high theft and hostile visitors, and changed its bathroom rules in November after workers found syringes and pipes. The deteriorating crime and drug use conditions on the street near the grocery store led to its closure.
San Francisco Fire Department data shows that emergency responders were called to the Downtown Whole Foods at least once a week on average during the first six months it was open, with calls ranging from overdoses to psychiatric episodes and other disturbances. The store, which opened in March 2022, abruptly closed this week citing employee safety concerns. Customers reported witnessing looting and theft, while a former supervisor cited public safety concerns and a lack of employee parking as reasons for the closure. The area surrounding the store has been a hotspot for the city's behavioral health crisis, and the closure is a major blow to some residents who rely on the store for groceries.
The mother of the Louisville shooter called 911 to report her son's intention to carry out a shooting at his workplace. The shooting left five people dead and nine others injured. The family of the shooter released a statement saying he had mental health issues that they had been "actively addressing" before the shooting. The incident brought the number of people killed by gun violence in Louisville to 40 in 2023 so far. The U.S. has seen 146 mass shootings in 2023, the most at this point in the year since 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Frantic 911 calls from witnesses reporting a mass shooting at a Louisville bank were released by police, including from a woman who was on a virtual meeting and saw the shooter, as well as one from the man’s mother, who told a 911 operator that her son “currently has a gun and is heading toward” the bank. Bank employee Connor Sturgeon, 25, used an AR-15 assault-style rifle in the attack Monday at Old National Bank, where he killed five coworkers while livestreaming before police fatally shot him. Eight others were injured, including a police officer who was shot in the head and remains hospitalized in critical condition.