Early last Wednesday morning, Adrian Ashenden spent 15 minutes immobile on the floor "preoccupied with staying alive" while his wife frantically tried to call an ambulance. The regulator is investigating Optus's failure to connect some emergency calls. The Gold Coast resident and cancer patient had woken up feeling unwell at 3:45am, and by 4am, he had collapsed. "I tried to call triple-0 and it was strange — the phone was totally dead, there was no dial tone, no nothing," he told the ABC.
After two more attempts they eventually connected to triple-0, and an ambulance took Mr Ashenden to hospital for treatment. While it turned out he was not in "mortal danger", receiving daily radiation treatment for cancer means he and his wife take any health scare seriously