I pains me to say this, but it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Quote:
A Calgary toddler has died after his family's 911 call via an internet phone service reached a call centre in another city, leaving them waiting for an ambulance, officials said Wednesday.
The family, located in the north end community of Coventry Hills, called the emergency telephone number Tuesday night after discovering the 18-month-old boy unconscious and having trouble breathing. They used a service that transmits calls over the internet.
Their call was answered by a call centre not in Calgary but in the city where their internet phone service provider is based. It's unclear why, but the call was not forwarded to Calgary's 911 call centre.
The family waited 15 to 20 minutes for an ambulance, then asked a next-door neighbour to call the emergency phone number from his land line. An ambulance arrived less than six minutes later.
The toddler was pronounced dead in hospital.
The head of Calgary's Emergency Medical Services, Tom Sampson, said the family did nothing wrong, and his heart goes out to them. He said EMS wants to know why 911 operators in Calgary never received the family's call.
"We need to understand how this connection did not occur and what we can do to ensure that this issue is addressed, not only here in Calgary but frankly across Canada," he said.
Officials remind anyone with internet telephone service to verify the 911 policy with their providers.
cbc.ca
I work in this industry, and you have no idea how many people flock to get internet phone! It is astonunding how a cheaper serivce ranks people in while they egnore the realities of the serivce.
VOIP is as reliable as the internet service, which to me is not reliable enough to count on it as a phone service. Internet goes down far more often then a regular line does, and I know this from a technician's point of view, which is why I say people who use VOIP as their primary phone serivce is only asking for it.
The very sad thing about this situation is these parents paied for this cheap phone service with their child's life.
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Humans are intelligent, but that doesn't make them smart.