ROCKVILLE, Md. (WUSA9) — A grieving father is filled with questions tonight. Why did his son have to die? Why did he keep getting busy signals when he repeatedly called 911 to plea for help?
Montgomery County still searching for answers to those questions. 911 operators were using the back-up emergency communications center and they think the air conditioning system may have failed, causing all the computers to shut down Sunday night into Monday morning.
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But that's no solace to Eduardo Somarriba.
"Why," the 69-year-old Nicaraguan refugee asked through tears. "Why did my son have to die?"
Marlon Somarriba was struggling with renal disease. Late Sunday night, he told his dad he needed to go to the hospital. But when his father dialed 911, all he got was a busy signal.
Eduardo Somarriba said he still cannot understand it. He kept calling back. And he kept getting busy signals.
"If they'd answered the phone, my son would be alive," he said.
He called family members. They got busy signals too. Marlon's brother finally got Rockville City Police, but when the ambulance arrived nearly an hour and a half after the first call, the 40-year-old restaurant worker was dead.
A 91-year-old woman died in Olney during the outage too. For some two hours, people calling 911 in Montgomery County got busy signals instead of operators.
“Well, that's disheartening,” said County Executive Ike Leggett. “That's why I'm investigating to make sure the county will not allow this to occur again.”
The County suspects the computers overheated, but it's not certain. So if officials are not sure how it happened, could it happen again?
“No,” said Leggett. “We have system back up today. And we have redundancy on top of that.”
Police and fire dispatchers first started talking on the radio about the problem at about just after 11 p.m. Sunday night. But it was not until about two hours later that Alert Montgomery sent out its first email and text alert telling residents to call their district police station if they needed help.
The County Executive said that delay will also be part of his investigation.
Montgomery County now said if you cannot get a 911 operator, call 311 or the closest fire or police station.
