Fatal failure halts installation of 911 caller-ID system
By David Abel, Globe Staff | May 25, 2005
A Hopkinton mother who lived about three blocks from a fire station died last week after a glitch in a new 911 caller-identification system that is being installed statewide failed to find her home, state officials and local police said yesterday.
The death of the 49-year-old woman who dialed 911 and then apparently stopped breathing, officials said, has led the Massachusetts Statewide Emergency Telecommunications Board to suspend all planned installations of the 911 equipment. Board officials said similar problems have been found in other communities with the system.
Verizon has a state contract to install the Vesta equipment, which is designed to allow 911 operators to better locate cellphone callers, in every community throughout the state at a cost of about $75 million, said Paul J. Fahey, executive director of the state's telecommunications board. So far, he said, 16 communities in Massachusetts have received the system since installations began last fall. Hopkinton was the third.
State officials are working with Verizon to determine why the system failed, Fahey said, and the phone company has supplied 911 operators with ways to trace future calls that cannot be located.
''A woman died because of what happened; there's no way to minimize that," said Fahey, who said the phone company told the board it has not heard of similar problems in other states. ''Until we resolve this problem and get satisfactory answers from Verizon, we're going to hold off installing this new equipment, and we're watching it very carefully."
A spokesman for Verizon said the company recommended to the state that it stop installing the equipment elsewhere.
''We don't know whether it's the hardware or the software or if it's the way it was installed or something else," said Jack Hoey, the Verizon spokesman. He said he wasn't aware of anything specific in Hopkinton that might have caused the problem.
Fahey said the board has found similar glitches with about four calls in two or three other communities.
Since the equipment was installed in Hopkinton in March, the Police Department's emergency center has received 376 calls over conventional phone lines and 132 wireless calls. Verizon and the telecommunications board are analyzing the 911 records to try to determine how many times a similar problem occurred, police said.
Between Thursday, when the woman called, and yesterday, police said they received 28 emergency calls from conventional phones. One additional call failed to display information, said Hopkinton Police Chief Thomas Irvin. ''Thankfully, the caller was able to communicate their location to the 911 dispatcher," he said in a statement.
"Our confidence in our 911 system has been shaken by these events, but dialing 911 is still the best available option for our residents who need emergency services," Irvin said.
The woman's call came into Hopkinton Police Department's 911 center at 7:12 a.m. Thursday, police said. The phone number and address failed to display on the new equipment.
The dispatcher repeatedly asked the caller for the address, but Sheryl Abbate was unable to respond, police and relatives said. She apparently had an asthma attack and had collapsed on the floor of her Maple Street home, said Thomas Abbate, her husband of 16 years.
Police transferred the call to the Hopkinton Fire Department, but Abbate's address also did not appear on their system. When an operator at the Fire Department heard a train whistle in the background, firefighters and police officers responded near the town's train tracks, activating their sirens in the hope they would hear the siren over the phone line.
At about 8 a.m., the Abbates' son Michael, 14, found his mother on the floor. He woke up his father, who picked up the phone and told operators where to send help.
Paramedics arrived soon after and took Sheryl Abbate to Milford Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Reached at home last night, Abbate said he was still coming to terms with what happened to his wife, who spent 31 years working for Verizon, most recently as a manager in an engineering department in Marlborough. He is disabled, he said, and she was the family's chief breadwinner. He also said he worried about the impact on their son, whom they adopted when he was 5.
''We just buried her [Monday]," Abbate said. ''I'm not angry. I don't know what I am. I'm just numb. I haven't had time to process it. I'm still in shock. It just doesn't seem real. I'm still lying in bed putting perfume on her pillow to pretend she's still there."
By David Abel, Globe Staff | May 25, 2005
A Hopkinton mother who lived about three blocks from a fire station died last week after a glitch in a new 911 caller-identification system that is being installed statewide failed to find her home, state officials and local police said yesterday.
The death of the 49-year-old woman who dialed 911 and then apparently stopped breathing, officials said, has led the Massachusetts Statewide Emergency Telecommunications Board to suspend all planned installations of the 911 equipment. Board officials said similar problems have been found in other communities with the system.
Verizon has a state contract to install the Vesta equipment, which is designed to allow 911 operators to better locate cellphone callers, in every community throughout the state at a cost of about $75 million, said Paul J. Fahey, executive director of the state's telecommunications board. So far, he said, 16 communities in Massachusetts have received the system since installations began last fall. Hopkinton was the third.
State officials are working with Verizon to determine why the system failed, Fahey said, and the phone company has supplied 911 operators with ways to trace future calls that cannot be located.
''A woman died because of what happened; there's no way to minimize that," said Fahey, who said the phone company told the board it has not heard of similar problems in other states. ''Until we resolve this problem and get satisfactory answers from Verizon, we're going to hold off installing this new equipment, and we're watching it very carefully."
A spokesman for Verizon said the company recommended to the state that it stop installing the equipment elsewhere.
''We don't know whether it's the hardware or the software or if it's the way it was installed or something else," said Jack Hoey, the Verizon spokesman. He said he wasn't aware of anything specific in Hopkinton that might have caused the problem.
Fahey said the board has found similar glitches with about four calls in two or three other communities.
Since the equipment was installed in Hopkinton in March, the Police Department's emergency center has received 376 calls over conventional phone lines and 132 wireless calls. Verizon and the telecommunications board are analyzing the 911 records to try to determine how many times a similar problem occurred, police said.
Between Thursday, when the woman called, and yesterday, police said they received 28 emergency calls from conventional phones. One additional call failed to display information, said Hopkinton Police Chief Thomas Irvin. ''Thankfully, the caller was able to communicate their location to the 911 dispatcher," he said in a statement.
"Our confidence in our 911 system has been shaken by these events, but dialing 911 is still the best available option for our residents who need emergency services," Irvin said.
The woman's call came into Hopkinton Police Department's 911 center at 7:12 a.m. Thursday, police said. The phone number and address failed to display on the new equipment.
The dispatcher repeatedly asked the caller for the address, but Sheryl Abbate was unable to respond, police and relatives said. She apparently had an asthma attack and had collapsed on the floor of her Maple Street home, said Thomas Abbate, her husband of 16 years.
Police transferred the call to the Hopkinton Fire Department, but Abbate's address also did not appear on their system. When an operator at the Fire Department heard a train whistle in the background, firefighters and police officers responded near the town's train tracks, activating their sirens in the hope they would hear the siren over the phone line.
At about 8 a.m., the Abbates' son Michael, 14, found his mother on the floor. He woke up his father, who picked up the phone and told operators where to send help.
Paramedics arrived soon after and took Sheryl Abbate to Milford Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Reached at home last night, Abbate said he was still coming to terms with what happened to his wife, who spent 31 years working for Verizon, most recently as a manager in an engineering department in Marlborough. He is disabled, he said, and she was the family's chief breadwinner. He also said he worried about the impact on their son, whom they adopted when he was 5.
''We just buried her [Monday]," Abbate said. ''I'm not angry. I don't know what I am. I'm just numb. I haven't had time to process it. I'm still in shock. It just doesn't seem real. I'm still lying in bed putting perfume on her pillow to pretend she's still there."
