A family says they called 911 Friday after discovering their 5-month-old baby wouldn’t wake up from a nap, but they told police they could not get through to 911, the News4 I-Team confirmed.
That child was pronounced dead during a 911 computer outage that afternoon.
Two family members told police they called 911 Friday afternoon, according to two public safety sources familiar with an internal D.C. police report. It happened right about the time D.C.’s 911 system started to have issues.
According to that internal report, neither family member got anyone to pick up at 911.
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With calls unanswered, someone instead went to get help outside the Northwest D.C. apartment building and found a nearby federal police officer, the report says.
D.C.’s chief technology officer blamed the outage on an improper software update that kept 911 employees from being able to access their systems for about two hours until it was cleared up later that afternoon.
The deputy mayor for public safety released a statement over the weekend with a timeline that starts when the family was able to get through but does not include the missed calls.
Investigations
Investigations by the News4 I-Team
The deputy mayor’s timeline seemed to show a timely response. It says the 911 call center took two calls from the apartment building at 12:51 p.m. The call center dispatched the call at 12:53 p.m.
One call taker gave CPR instructions while the other call taker told the other caller to go downstairs and meet first responders, according to the deputy mayor’s statement. That caller then encountered a federal officer.
At 12:58 p.m., police and firefighters arrived. Another Fire and EMS unit arrived at 1:09 p.m., and at 1:14 p.m., the baby was taken to a hospital where it was pronounced dead.
The statements from the CTO and the deputy mayor did not acknowledge what may be the most serious issue — that urgent 911 calls went unanswered, let alone how many other 911 calls went unanswered, too.
It’s unclear if a faster response could have saved the baby’s life.
The I-Team asked the officials who run D.C.’s 911 system for comment about the internal police report but hasn’t received a response.
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