Montgomery County, Maryland, will investigate why 911 callers received a busy signal for nearly two hours late Sunday and early Monday, during which time two people died after calls were placed regarding medical emergencies.
The 911 system failed between about 11:10 p.m. Sunday and 1:10 a.m. Monday, Montgomery County officials said in a statement issued Monday afternoon.
During the outage, crews responded to two emergency calls, which involved fatalities, a 91-year-old woman from Olney and a 40-year-old man from Twinbrook. County Executive Ike Leggett said officials will look at whether the 911 outage affected treatment for either patient.
“I am calling for an immediate investigation into the outage and what impact it may have had on the county’s response times to emergencies, as well as any consequences,” Leggett said in the statement.
Based on the initial investigation, investigators believe the 911 system shut off to prevent overheating when the air conditioning equipment failed in the IT room of the Alternate Emergency Communications Center building, officials said. The county said they took appropriate actions throughout the day and do not expect any further interruptions of service.
If anyone experiences an emergency, they should call 911. If they receive a busy signal, the county said do not all 311 any time after 7 p.m. They said residents should call their local police district station directly.
Police Stations:
- 1st District Rockville Station, 240-773-6070
- 2nd District Bethesda Station, 240-773-6700
- 3rd District Silver Spring, 240-773-6800
- 4th District Wheaton, 240-773-5500
- 5th District Germantown, 240-773-6200
- 6th District Gaithersburg, 240-773-5700
Anyone uncertain as to which police district serves a particular community should see: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/pol/districts/whatsmydistrict.html
