Some Salt Lake City AT&T carriers had a big problem yesterday when their 911 calls were mysteriously directed to an operator in Seattle, according to KSL-TV.
AT&T says the problem was fixed later that night, but it still doesn't know exactly what caused it.
"We were coming down from Farmington to drop my son off at school," resident Tony Sams told the new station. "We witnessed a hit-and-run incident. We dialed 911."
The 911 dispatcher's response when he gave her his location startled him when he found out he was calling Seattle.
Somehow, his iPhone had connected him with the emergency response center and he tried several more times with the same result, according to the report.
When he called the general dispatch number for Salt Lake City police, dispatchers 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," Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Robin Snyder told KSL-TV. "We're not quite sure what happened there."
Officers began 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.
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.
