Days after D.C.’s 911 system suddenly went down for hours on Friday, there’s finally an explanation: D.C. officials say a technology contractor incorrectly rolled out a software update.
During the outage, an infant went into cardiac arrest and died as firefighters pleaded for additional help.
News4 has been on a search for answers. Here’s what we’ve found so far.
What knocked out the 911 system
D.C. often points out its 911 call center is the fourth-busiest in the nation. Last year, it took an average of one emergency call every three seconds.
When the system goes down, dispatch teams rely on paper and pencil to keep track of hundreds of calls, public safety officials told News4.
Dispatchers were unable to access the system for almost two hours on Friday. Some users with the Metropolitan Police Department and DC Fire and EMS couldn’t access the dispatch system for almost six hours.
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So what went wrong?
D.C. officials say a technology contractor incorrectly rolled out a software update.
“The software update was not done in compliance with protocol and resulted in a disruption that limited agencies’ access to the system,” the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer said in a statement.
The contractor is no longer employed by the D.C. government, the office said.
‘We have an infant in cardiac arrest’
Minutes into the 911 system outage, 911 calls reported that a 5-month-old infant stopped breathing in an apartment in the 3000 block of Connecticut Avenue NW, near the National Zoo.
According to radio traffic, firefighters performed CPR on the infant but wanted paramedics and an advanced ambulance to rush the baby to a hospital. The dispatch center repeatedly tried to send a paramedic who was unavailable and still handling another call.
On the scene, frustration could be heard in the voice of a first responder.
“We have an infant in cardiac arrest. I’ve made everyone aware of this multiple times here on this channel … Do we have an ALS unit or a paramedic that is possibly available?” the first responder said.
An ambulance crew just a half-mile away appears to have dispatched itself after hearing the call for help.
Someone ran out of the apartment to await first responders and a National Zoo Police officer saw their distress and assisted in the moments before DC Fire and EMS arrived.
Timeline of a tragedy
Here’s what happened when:
- 12:40 p.m. The contractor updates the software, the system crashes and manual operations begin
- 12:51 p.m. Two calls for help are received about an infant not breathing
- 12:53 p.m. The 911 call center dispatched the call
- 12:58 p.m. D.C. firefighters arrive and start calling for an ambulance
- 1:09 p.m. The ambulance arrives
- 1:14 p.m. The infant is taken to a hospital after being treated at the scene
- 1:40 p.m. The 5-month-old is pronounced dead
- 2:28 p.m. The computer system disruption is resolved for the 911 call center
- D.C. police began a death investigation, which is standard.
Unanswered questions about 911 outages
The 911 outage was the system’s fifth outage since late May, according to the tally of Dave Statter, a veteran journalist who closely monitors the system. D.C. officials would not confirm that number.
One outage last month occurred because of the global CrowdStrike outage, officials said.
News4 wanted to ask the director of D.C.’s 911 center how often the system has gone down, why and what assurances residents can have that it won’t happen again. But the office declined to answer questions.
News4 is still working to get answers.
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