Police investigate claimed death linked to Telstra outage

South Australia Police are investigating a claimed death that has been publicly linked to Telstra’s nationwide outage, turning a major telecom failure into a fast-moving public-safety inquiry.

Senator Kerrynne Liddle said on Tuesday that an elderly person had died after being unable to contact emergency services during the outage. Police later confirmed they were investigating the claim after contacting both Liddle and the family.

The alleged link has not been formally verified. Police initially said they had no prior knowledge of a death connected to the outage, and South Australia Police Minister Michael Brown criticised the public release of an unverified claim.

What Telstra says happened

Telstra said the outage on July 8 was caused by a software error that reset network clocks to 2006, disrupting mobile services and affecting some Triple Zero calls.

The company later said a separate secondary issue also affected some emergency calls that night. Telstra said it had largely resolved the problem and that authorities were reviewing the incident.

One report said Telstra carried out more than 600 welfare checks after the outage, reflecting the scale of concern about possible emergency-call failures.

Why the claim matters

Triple Zero is the main route for urgent police, ambulance and fire calls, so any outage affecting access to the service raises immediate safety concerns. The reported death has added urgency to the episode, but the available reporting does not establish causation.

That distinction matters. The public allegation remains unverified, and police are now trying to determine whether the reported death is in any way connected to the outage.

What happens next

The case is now moving on several tracks at once: South Australia Police are checking the death claim, Telstra is under pressure over the outage’s root cause and secondary Triple Zero issue, and regulators are reviewing the incident.

Further detail may come from police inquiries, Telstra’s internal review and any regulator findings about how many emergency calls failed and how many required welfare follow-up.