The aftermath of the incident is continuing to unfold, with revelations of further Australians left unable to contact emergency services, and police deployed after the telco’s admission more people were initially overlooked in assessments of the impact on triple zero calls.

One family recounted to 9News the fear experienced when they were unable to call for help as their loved one, Steven, collapsed, suffering a stroke. 

The grandfather is lucky to be alive after repeated triple-zero calls failed.

“You can’t help them, you’re trying to contact someone who can help them and they’re not responding,” Doug Costello, Steven’s son-in-law, said. 

The family eventually contacted a friend on the Telstra network, who successfully connected them with ambulance services.

Doug said he was one of the five Australians who reported the Optus outage on Thursday morning.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas today confirmed it wasn’t until lunchtime that the telco actually reacted. 

“Following that there was a rectification made, and the information that came back from Optus initially is that it was minor in nature,” he said.

We now know that wasn’t the case. More than 600 calls to triple zero failed and three people died after their attempts to ring help for help went unanswered. 

One of those victims was a South Australian woman from Queenstown.

“We want to make sure they get more than anything else is an appreciation of what exactly transpired and when,” Malinauskas said.