South Australian police have confirmed a woman’s death was not linked to the Telstra outage, despite earlier claims made by a Liberal senator.
Police in the State launched an investigation following claims from South Australian Senator Kerrynne Liddle on social media that a woman had died due to calls to triple-zero not being able be connected during Wednesday’s outage.
The investigation revealed the woman was found unresponsive at 10am on Wednesday by her partner.
The partner called a neighbour, who had medical experience, via a Telstra phone, with the call able to be connected.
The neighbour, who also had a Telstra phone, later called triple-zero, which also went through.
However, later calls after the woman was transported to hospital were not able to be connected, police said. The woman later died in hospital.
“It now appears that these difficulties may have been misinterpreted and formed the basis of the belief that the woman’s death was connected to the 000 outage,” SA police said in a statement.
“It is unfortunate their loved one’s death was placed in the public arena in the manner it was when it need not have been.”
Communications Minister Anika Wells said it was a relief there had been no deaths linked to the Telstra outage.
– with AAP