Mystery 911 'ghost' calls blamed for deaths in the US
T-Mobile phones are repeatedly ringing emergency services and clogging up the lines
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Your support makes all the difference.Two people have died after mysterious ghost calls flooded the 911 emergency dispatch system in Dallas, Texas.
Six-month-old Brandon Alex passed away on Saturday after falling out of his bed.
His babysitter found him unconscious but still breathing and called 911 three times, but was repeated placed on hold and eventually hung up after failing to get through for more than 30 minutes, reports Dallas News.
The youngster was taken to hospital by his mother, Bridget Alex, but didn’t regain consciousness.
In a similar incident last week, 52-year-old Brian Cross was found unconscious at home by his husband, David Taffet.
Mr Taffet was unable to get through to an operator for 20 minutes, and Mr Cross passed away in hospital.
The issue appears to stem from the T-Mobile network.
When T-Mobile users in Dallas call 911 and are put on hold, their phones inexplicably make repeated 911 calls, clogging up the line.
These calls register as hang-ups, which operators then have to return, causing further problems.
Brandon Alex’s babysitter called 911 from a T-Mobile handset, and operators said they couldn’t get through when they tried to call her back.
Astonishingly, this isn’t the first time Dallas has experienced such problems. The T-Mobile ghost call issues started last year, and were believed to have been fixed in January.
The phantom calls are only originating from T-Mobile phones.
“It is outrageous that T-Mobile still has not resolved the ghost call issue that is putting Dallasites in danger by clogging our 911 system," said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings.
The CEO of T-Mobile, John Legere, has promised to send the company’s best engineers to Dallas to investigate the problem and says he’ll them there until the problem is fixed.
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