Child Dies After Babysitter Unable to Reach 911 Due to Technical Glitch

A six-month-old boy died in Dallas this week after he fell and was knocked unconscious. His babysitter was unable to reach 911 due to a T-Mobile error causing a backlog of emergency services calls.

The local CBS affiliate reports that the son of Bridget Alex died this week, unable to receive medical attention after he fell due to a T-Mobile error sending multiple “ghost calls” to emergency services.  “He was only six months,” said Alex, “it wasn’t his time.” Alex was at her nephew’s funeral when she received a call from her son’s babysitter to inform her that her son had fallen and would not wake up.

“I said, ‘Why couldn’t you call 911?’ Alex said, ‘I am calling 911. They are not answering their phones.’” The City of Dallas reported that T-Mobile phones were randomly dialing 911 tying up emergency service call centers for hours, a reoccurring problem that has been known since November of last year. On Saturday the city of Dallas reported as many as 422 calls were on hold.

The city aims to answer all emergency service calls within 10 seconds, but on Saturday night callers were subjected to wait times of up to 30 or 40 minutes. Speaking about her babysitter’s attempt to contact 911 Bridget Alex said, “The last time she called, they had her on hold for 31 minutes.” Alex continued, “I just want y’all to tell me, why didn’t you respond to my son? That’s all I want to know.”

Upon receiving the call informing her of her son’s condition, Alex drove home and brought the child to the hospital herself, arriving at approximately 7:00 PM, an hour after the babysitter’s call to emergency services. By that time the child had stopped breathing and was pronounced dead within the hour by a doctor. Alex blames both the City of Dallas and T-Mobile for their failure to rectify the bug that caused issues with 911 calls.

At the end of the day, I’m still going to be here hurt, because he’s not going to be here,” Alex said. “I’m not going to get to see him or smell him or touch him or kiss him ever again.” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings commented on the issue saying  “I want the problem solved immediately and if it takes longer I want to know why.”