Date: Fri May  9 10:40:12 2008
Subject: City’s investigation into VoIP communications issues concluded
From: EMS Public Information

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             CITYBEAT - CITY OF CALGARY PRESS RELEASE
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The City of Calgary Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and
Public Safety Communications (PSC) have concluded an
investigation into the communications issues associated with
an emergency response involving Elijah Luck on Tuesday April
29, 2008.  

Curtis Brochu, Manager of The City’s PSC is available for
media interviews. Please call The City’s media line at (403)
515-0134 to schedule an interview. 

The City has determined that:
•	The Luck family did place a call to 9-1-1 using
their Voice over Internet Phone (VoIP) to request assistance.
 
•	The Luck family provided their Calgary address to
their VoIP provider. 
•	The Luck family believed they had spoken to PSC,
when in fact they had been speaking with their VoIP
provider’s contact centre.
•	The VoIP provider did not transfer the caller, nor
the caller’s request for an ambulance to the PSC in Calgary. 
•	The VoIP provider did receive the request for
service and arranged for an ambulance to be dispatched to an
address in Ontario associated with the Luck family.
•	Public Safety Communications eventually received a
request for assistance to the Luck residence from neighbors
assisting the Luck family.  
•	Those calls for service generated a timely and
urgent response by The City’s Emergency Medical and Fire
Services. 
•	Processes and actions within control and on behalf
of The City of Calgary were timely and completely
appropriate. 
•	The City was unable to identify areas within its
control that could be modified or improved upon to prevent
this from reoccurring. 
•	The City has identified processes external to The
City of Calgary which could be improved upon to prevent this
tragic situation from reoccurring. 

In light of this investigation, The City’s Public Safety
Communications is doing the following:
•	Actively participating in the additional
investigations underway. 
•	Communicating to the public the issues around
telephone service choices.  
•	Seeking to improve consumer awareness about the
limitations and issues around different phone services and
their connectivity to 9-1-1 through public education. 
•	Where possible, working with industry to develop
improved 9-1-1 connectivity solutions for telecommunication
technologies. 

The City of Calgary PSC and EMS are advising Calgarians to
make sure they know how their telecommunication provider will
reach 9-1-1 when they consider subscribing to Internet based
telephone service. 

Calgarians should not make a test call to 9-1-1 to check the
status of their Internet based telephone service. This will
result in an overload of calls to The City’s Public Safety
Communications centre. Contact your Internet service
provider. 

Background
On Tuesday April 29, 2008 a care giver of 18 month old Elijah
Luck called 9-1-1 using an Internet based service, or VoIP.
This initial 9-1-1 call was not received by The City of
Calgary’s PSC centre. The call is reported to have been
assigned to emergency services in Ontario via the Internet
based telephone service provider. 

When emergency EMS assistance did not immediately arrive the
family sought help from neighbours who made a second 9-1-1
call using a standard land line telephone. Records indicate
that The City’s PSC received that call, answered within three
seconds, evaluated and dispatched emergency services for a
total response time to the residence of five minutes and 43
seconds.  Paramedics provided aggressive advanced life
support care and rapid transport to Alberta Children’s
Hospital. Unfortunately, the child was pronounced dead at the
hospital. Senior management from PSC and EMS have expressed
heart felt condolences in person to the family. 

At the time of the incident the care giver did everything
right and used every resource available to them to contact
emergency services.  

The City of Calgary’s PSC centre is the 9-1-1 emergency
contact point for Calgary and much of the surrounding area.
The PSC is staffed by emergency communications officers who
are cross-trained to handle Fire, EMS and Police emergencies.
The City of Calgary’s 9-1-1 system handles over one million
calls per year.

The City of Calgary’s Public Safety Communications (PSC)
centre, is the 9-1-1 emergency contact point for Calgary and
much of the surrounding area. The PSC is staffed by emergency
communications officers who are cross-trained to handle Fire,
EMS and Police emergencies. The City of Calgary’s 9-1-1
system handles over 1 million calls per year.

The Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) regulates 9-1
-1 systems in Canada.


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Public Contact Information:

3-1-1

Public Email Contact: 

    3-1-1contactus@calgary.ca

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