Dallas to increase staffing at PSAP after 911-related deaths, agrees alleged ‘ghost’ calls not the problem

Bridget Alex expressed dismay that the 911 problem was not addressed earlier, so her son could have received needed help.

“This has been going on since November,” Bridget Alex said during an interview with NBC 5 in Dallas. “It took me to lose my son for y’all to call extra people, extra techs to be here.

“It took me to lose my six-month-old son? Why did my child have to be the example?”

At the time, Dallas officials claimed that the 911 delays was attributable to “ghost” calls from T-Mobile phones, according to multiple media reports during the past month and a press release issued by the city on March 7.

“Since November 2016, the City of Dallas 911 Call Center has experienced repeated 911 calls involving T-Mobile cell phone service,” the March 7 press release states. “Mobile devices on the T-Mobile network appear to make multiple 911 hang-up calls after someone makes a legitimate call to 911 for service. These ghost calls come into the 911 call system queue from the T-Mobile network, forcing 911 call takers to call every hang up to verify whether emergency service is needed.

“City officials and the Dallas Police Department have been working with T-Mobile to understand why this is the only carrier with a ghost-call issue. This has impacted the ability of callers to reach 911 in a timely manner, leaving legitimate 911 callers to be placed on hold for several minutes. Just last night 911 call takers had 360+ calls in queue.”

Officials for the city of Dallas and T-Mobile conducted a joint press conference on Wednesday. During the press conference, reporter David Taffet revealed that his husband—Brian Cross—died on March 6 after it took Taffet 20 minutes to reach 911. While attempting to administer CPR, Taffet’s first emergency call was disconnected, and his second call was put on hold. After Taffet reached 911, Cross was transported to a hospital, where he died.

During the Wednesday press conference, T-Mobile representatives agreed with Dallas officials’ sentiments that the city’s 911 problems need to be fixed as quickly as possible. However, the T-Mobile officials indicated that they were puzzled by the claims of “ghost” calls coming from devices operating on the T-Mobile network, noting that no similar problems had occurred elsewhere in the United States.

“Clearly, we are seeing a set of circumstances in Dallas which is unique,” T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray said during the press conference. “We have seen a very small incident outside the Dallas PSAP area. We are handling and delivering calls to over 4,000 PSAPs across the U.S. This year to date, we already have delivered over 9 million calls successfully, and we have not seen areccurrence of this problem in other PSAPs.

“That’s one of the tough pieces we’re trying to work through here. If this was more commonplace—God forbid—we would have more to work through, more to understand and more to research. But this problem—the volume and the level of call spikes here in Dallas—is unique for us, at this point in time.”