Telstra shares new details of possible outage death

Telstra says it has no record of Triple Zero (000) calls made from phone numbers associated with the address of a person who later died in a South Australian regional hospital on Wednesday.

The SA Police Commissioner told radio station FiveAA earlier today that the person's spouse had tried to ring for an ambulance, which "didn't go through" so they used another phone.

In a press conference on Friday morning, Mr Ackland said the company had done a detailed review of its network records and phone numbers associated with the person's address.

"To date, we can see no record of calls from those numbers accessing Telstra's mobile network to call Triple Zero and, more broadly, no record of any calls from those numbers to the Triple Zero platform,"

he said.

"We've also confirmed there were no active outages affecting the local area at the time and our records show good mobile signal strength at that location.

"We can see that a related call was successfully made to Triple Zero from another number which was connected and transferred to the relevant emergency authority correctly."

Mr Ackland said Telstra was assisting SA authorities in their investigation "including whether there is any connection to Wednesday's outage".

On Friday morning, SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens gave further details as the investigation into the death continues.

"Our understanding is that a person was conveyed to a regional hospital," he told radio station FiveAA.

"That person's spouse did try to call using Triple Zero for an ambulance. That didn't go through, so they utilised another phone.

"We have an obligation to investigate so we'll prepare a report for the coroner and that'll take into account all of the circumstances and it will be a matter for the coroner to decide what the implications are."

Today, an SA Ambulance Service spokesperson said they sent an ambulance after receiving a Triple Zero call on Wednesday morning.

"SAAS received a Triple Zero (000) call on Wednesday morning and an ambulance was dispatched arriving on scene in 11 minutes," the spokesperson said.

"The patient was transported to the local hospital.

"SAAS is reviewing the call and is working with SAPOL as part of its investigation."

Minister defends criticism

SA Police is looking into the cause and circumstances of the death after federal Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle said an elderly person had died during the Telstra outage.

The senator posted on social media on Wednesday night that her office had received a report of "a tragic death following an apparent failure to connect to Triple Zero".

In a statement on Thursday, SA Police said they attended Senator Liddle's office and spoke to her and a staff member on Thursday.

"As a result, contact was subsequently made with the family of an individual who died at a regional hospital on Wednesday 8 July," they said.

"Police were not notified of the death.

"After being advised of the death, police immediately commenced an investigation into the cause and circumstances."

On Thursday morning, Police Minister Michael Brown and acting Premier Kyam Maher criticised Senator Liddle for posting about the case on social media before notifying police.

In a statement yesterday, Senator Liddle said she was "disappointed" Mr Brown had "chose to front the media and question my integrity in this process".

Senator Liddle reiterated that her office had "received a report that an elderly South Australian had died during the Telstra network outage".

"After contact from Telstra, media and relevant authorities, my office advised the family to reach out to SAPOL directly. The grieving family did that today [Thursday]," she said.

On Friday, Mr Brown stood by his view that the information should have been shared with police in private before being shared on social media.

"If Senator Liddle has any information, she should have provided it directly to police and not actually put a Facebook post up," he told 891 ABC Adelaide.

Mr Brown also questioned whether the death was caused by the Triple Zero outage.

"I need to be careful about what I say but I can say that I'm not aware of any evidence that points to the Triple Zero outages being a cause or contributing to the death of this particular person," he said.

He said he did not think Senator Liddle would have come forward with any information to police if he had not called for her to do so in the media.

The ABC has contacted Senator Liddle for comment.

Health Minister Blair Boyer said it was important the state government "get to the bottom" of what happened.

"My message also is to everyone — not just elected members of parliament but all members of the community — at times like this when we hear indication or even just a rumour that a call might not have gone through, whether someone was seeking to get the services of SAPOL or the MFS or CFS or the South Australian Ambulance Service, that that is reported immediately to one of those authorities or to the government for immediate investigation — that's really important," he said.