Eight-week old baby who died during Optus triple-0 blackout is identified – as gutwrenching new details are revealed

A devastated young mum has shared her pain after her newborn baby died during the Optus 13-hour triple-0 blackout on Thursday.

South Australian woman Chrisanya Seeby’s eight-week-old son Ryan is believed to be one of four people who died during the deadly crisis after trying to make 000 calls.

A botched firewall update blocked hundreds of emergency calls from the telco’s customers in the state, along with Western Australia and Northern Territory.  

It’s understood baby Ryan was at his paternal grandmother’s home in Gawler West, 43km north of Adelaide, on September 18, when she attempted to call an ambulance to the Mulga Street address.

SA Police have since said the outage was ‘unlikely to have contributed’ to the boy’s death because his grandmother immediately used another phone to contact Triple-0 after her initial call failed. 

While the infant’s cause of death is unknown at this stage, his family celebrated his memory in a series of posts on social media.

‘(Rest in peace) Ryan, fly high buddy. Mummy loves you… forever eight weeks,’ Ms Seeby wrote on Facebook.

She included his birth date – July 21 this year – and the date of his passing on September 18 with a blue heart and white dove emoji. 

On Tuesday, she also posted: ‘I love you my angel’.

Baby Ryan was just eight weeks old when he died during the Optus Triple-0 service blackout

One of Ryan’s aunts was pictured in a public Facebook post holding the infant

Ms Seeby’s brother’s fiancée Tara Winston also paid tribute to the child on Facebook on September 20.

‘My heart has been pretty heavy recently after the passing of my fiancé’s sister’s eight-week-old baby boy, our nephew Ryan,’ Ms Winston posted.

‘My heart lies with his family, especially his mother Chrisanya Seeby. You made a very sweet little boy who we will carry in our hearts forever.’

Ms Seeby replied with a crying emoji and a blue heart and added: ‘Thank you. I miss my little boy, RIP Ryan.’

In the comments, another family member posted a news story about the Optus outage being ‘unlikely’ to have caused the eight-week-old’s death – which Ms Winston acknowledged with a ‘like’.

Ryan’s paternal grandmother, who was reportedly present for the boy’s medical emergency, declined to comment when contacted by Daily Mail.

‘The preliminary investigations indicate the child’s death is not due to any delay in (SA Ambulance Service) attending the Mulga Street house, despite the failure of the first attempt to call 000,’ an SA Police spokesperson said.

Its investigation into the death of a 68-year-old woman from Adelaide suburb Queenstown was described as ‘more complex’, with further work ongoing to determine the impact of the outage.

Optus has been under fire since a botched firewall update last week caused chaos

The telco’s CEO confirmed the technical failure affected a number of emergency calls 

The deaths of two Perth men, a 74-year-old from Willetton and a 49-year-old from Kensington, have also been linked to the devastating fault.

Optus’ chief executive Stephen Rue confirmed on Friday that the telco conducted a network upgrade on Thursday and a technical failure had impacted emergency calls.

‘This resulted in the failure of a number of triple zero calls,’ Mr Rue said.

‘Our investigation is ongoing, but at this stage I can confirm that approximately 600 customers were potentially impacted, of which a proportion of their calls did not go through.’

It sparked a scathing response from South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.

‘I have not witnessed such incompetence from an Australian corporation in respect to communications worse than this,’ Malinauskas said.

‘I cannot believe that anyone in the senior levels of Optus thought they should craft a media statement and conduct a press conference before advising the South Australian government that they had ascertained two deaths had occurred.

‘I think quite frankly that is reprehensible conduct on behalf of Optus.’

South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas described Optus’ conduct as ‘reprehensible’

Lawyer Sam Macedone predicted Optus may face civil claims for compensation

Sam Macedone, who has practised as a solicitor since 1970, said Optus could face claims for civil compensation and damages in the fallout of the outage.

He told Channel Nine’s Weekend Today program that Optus had breached its duty of care to its customers during the outage on Thursday.

‘You would have to prove that the deaths were as a direct result of the fact that you couldn’t get onto triple zero and not for some other reason,’ Mr Macedone said.

‘If you could establish all those things, then I think Optus is going to face some huge claims for compensation.’

Mr Macedone suggested Optus hadn’t learned its lesson after it suffered the biggest mobile network outage in Australia’s history in November 2023.

Optus was fined more than $12million in penalties for breaching emergency call rules during the outage.

An investigation found the telco had failed to provide access to emergency services for 2,145 people and had subsequently failed to conduct welfare checks on 369 people who had tried to make an emergency call.

This comes as an Adelaide woman has detailed how she was forced to use her unresponsive husband’s thumbprint to unlock his phone to call emergency services during last week’s outage. 

Adelaide woman Simone Porcaro (right) said she tried to call 000 six times to save her husband

Ms Porcaro received a welfare call from Optus the next day

Simone Porcaro frantically tried to call triple zero six times after her husband Dave collapsed and lost conscious due to cellulitis, a serious leg infection.

Unable to get through, her quick-thinking seven-year-old daughter Caitlin suggested trying his phone, which was with another telco provider.

The pair managed to move his body to retrieve the phone from beneath him and used his thumb to unlock it and call for help. 

‘It just makes me angry as I should have been able to call triple zero,’ Ms Porcaro told Ten News.

‘We found the phone tucked underneath him and then we’ve kind of moved his arm to try and manoeuvre his thumb, so a couple of attempts to get his thumb into the thumbprint so that we can unlock that phone.’

Ms Porcaro eventually received a welfare call from Optus the next day and claimed the operator showed little compassion during the 40-second call.

She has been a loyal Optus customer for 15 years.

‘It was a bit of a scripted call,’ Ms Porcaro said.

‘They were offering me emergency services over 26 hours later.

‘It was just to tick a box.

‘Afterwards I was like, “Are you joking?” You’re offering me emergency services over 24 hours later. Where was the phone call, like two hours later or something like that?’

Optus has been contacted for comment.