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SALT LAKE CITY -- Many AT&T carriers had a big and potentially life-threatening problem Thursday. When AT&T customers tried to call 911 for help, they were connected to an operator a thousand miles away.
AT&T says the problem was fixed by 11:30 p.m. MDT, but it still doesn't know exactly what caused it.
"We were coming down from Farmington to drop my son off at school," says Tony Sams. "We witnessed a hit-and-run incident. We dialed 911."
Witnessing an accident was startling for Sams, but the 911 dispatcher's response when he gave her his location startled him quite a bit more.
"It's 911 in Seattle," Sams says.
The dispatcher told Sams he had the wrong address, but Sams knew where he was.
"I asked, ‘How is this possible? I dialed 911. I'm in Salt Lake. I've never been to Seattle," Sams says.
Somehow, his iPhone had connected him with an emergency response center a thousand miles away. He tried several more times with the same result.
Finally, Sams looked up the general dispatch number for Salt Lake City police. Dispatchers there told him the caller ID showed he was in Seattle.
"It doesn't make any sense that him being in Salt Lake City, dialing 911, that it would go to Seattle," says Salt Lake City police Sgt. Robin Snyder. "We're not quite sure what happened there."
When KSL News contacted Salt Lake police, they said they thought perhaps he had misdialed, or that the GPS on his phone was malfunctioning. But then the officers started trying to call from their phones, and they discovered nearly every AT&T phone they tried dialing 911 on was directed to the Seattle dispatch center.
Seattle dispatchers said they received multiple calls from Salt Lake City all day.
Before the problem was resolved, Salt Lake police were advising cell phone users to call the local dispatch number instead of 911 if they had an emergency.
Salt Lake police say on March 10, they received a 911 call from a woman who was in a car accident in California. They thought she also may have misdialed. She had Verizon service.
E-mail: jstagg@ksl.com
