Lack Of Cellphone Service Blamed In NYC Couple's Catskills Death

[johnhere]

I know it wouldn't of helped him, but I have learned to carry both ATT and Verizon phones with me. You wouldn't believe how many failed calls I've had with ATT where Verizon has worked. I'm still recording my results, but It's looking like that in the Baltimore/DC/DC metro, Frederick, NOVA , and Rockville areas, Verizon wins at least 4 out of eight calls.

But the Samsung, for my use, it what sold me on ATT!

I carried both for a while and found vz to have a lot less failed calls. It was a big enough difference that I dropped AT&T with the extra features they offer in favor of vz. I miss the minutes they offer but had to sacrifice features but didn't want to sacrifice reliability. Being able to make a call is more important than minutes for me so no regrets.

[efparri]

Here:

If he wasn't hurt in the crash and there were "perfect communications" -- the cellphone worked -- then he's alive now, because there was no reason to leave the car.


.

How about uncontrollable grief and shock that her husband -- of possibly 60 years or more -- could die before her eyes so suddenly and pointlessly? How about senseless but heart-rending guilt that she could do nothing to save him? How about an emotional pain in bereavement so profound that it temporarily overwhelmed the will to live? How about the hollow incredulity and numbingly bitter irony that it was all because the damn dumb cellphone wouldn't work?

You're so wrapped up in defending 'the industry' that you lost sight of the fact that this is a story about real human beings dying -- because their cellphone wouldn't work.

There's nothing to indicate panic. She would more likely have been well beyond that.


Perspective instantiates reality.
[From DX by HoFo app.]

Thers is no indication of when the calls were made in relationship to when the husband fell out of the car. It is logical to think that the husband intended to get out of the car, go around to the other side and help his wife out from the other side. At the time of the initial crash there were no life threatening events to require immediate calls for help. If your car slid off the driveway and struck the mailbox, would you dial 911? You would call for roadside assistance if you could not extricate the car yourself. I would think that the wife started making the calls after her husband was trapped under the door. The word "Panic" was used in the news story. I suppose you have better knowledge of the events than the police and rescue personnel. How the husband died came from family members. There has been no medical examiner's report.

[CA]

I carried both for a while and found vz to have a lot less failed calls. It was a big enough difference that I dropped AT&T with the extra features they offer in favor of vz. I miss the minutes they offer but had to sacrifice features but didn't want to sacrifice reliability. Being able to make a call is more important than minutes for me so no regrets.

It's all about the phone for me and if Verizon comes out with a Samsung Note, I will have to poke my eye out!

[johnhere]

Yeah hopefully they will. My main complaint with vz is the muffled sound at times. Makes me think I need hearing aids especially a Verizon to Verizon call. I really miss the AT&T call quality.

[CA]

Yeah hopefully they will. My main complaint with vz is the muffled sound at times. Makes me think I need hearing aids especially a Verizon to Verizon call. I really miss the AT&T call quality.

My ATT Note isn't muffled, but it isn't loud enough, my theory is that the manufactures do this to creat a longer battery life, similat to auto manufactures selling standard transmissions to increase CAFE numbers.

[johnhere]

If I could blend some AT&T features with Verizon features I'd be in heaven.

[ilvla2]

I've always wondered why a hybrid terrestrial/satellite setup hasn't become the norm, that way you'd use the cheaper terrestrial network most of the time, and be assured of service pretty much everywhere. I seem to remember AT&T working on something like this a while back, but I've never heard anything about it again.

[awj223]

I've always wondered why a hybrid terrestrial/satellite setup hasn't become the norm, that way you'd use the cheaper terrestrial network most of the time, and be assured of service pretty much everywhere. I seem to remember AT&T working on something like this a while back, but I've never heard anything about it again.

Nobody wants to carry around a gigantic phone that has the satellite transceivers in it. However, there is NO reason why an AT&T SIM card shouldn't be able to work in an Iridium phone, for example. They need to setup the proper roaming agreements and make it work. That way, it would be fairly easy to just put the SIM into an Iridium phone whenever you need the extra coverage (or for someone to make a GSM/UMTS/LTE/Iridium phone).

[johnhere]

AT&T was planning to bring it out to businesses first and then general consumers but haven't heard anything more about it. Maybe they scrapped it due to low sales. I think the phone was called genius or something similar to that. I could be wrong but that comes to mind.

[awj223]

Here:

If he wasn't hurt in the crash and there were "perfect communications" -- the cellphone worked -- then he's alive now, because there was no reason to leave the car.

If there had been an ambulance 50 feet away, he'd be alive now too. What are you going to do, blame his death on the EMS too, for not being in the right place at the right time? Hell, if his wife or friendshad been in another car following behind instead of in the same car, he'd probably be alive now. You going to blame her or them for that?

How about uncontrollable grief and shock that her husband -- of possibly 60 years or more -- could die before her eyes so suddenly and pointlessly? How about senseless but heart-rending guilt that she could do nothing to save him? How about an emotional pain in bereavement so profound that it temporarily overwhelmed the will to live? How about the hollow incredulity and numbingly bitter irony that it was all because the damn dumb cellphone wouldn't work?

You're so wrapped up in defending 'the industry' that you lost sight of the fact that this is a story about real human beings dying -- because their cellphone wouldn't work.

No, the person died because he drove off the road. On his own property no less. If he had built a guard rail on the side of his driveway, he'd probably be alive right now.

[ilvla2]

Nobody wants to carry around a gigantic phone that has the satellite transceivers in it. However, there is NO reason why an AT&T SIM card shouldn't be able to work in an Iridium phone, for example. They need to setup the proper roaming agreements and make it work. That way, it would be fairly easy to just put the SIM into an Iridium phone whenever you need the extra coverage (or for someone to make a GSM/UMTS/LTE/Iridium phone).

You can't tell me they don't have the technology to shrink those phones down to a small size. When you can make motors the size of a single molecule atom, surely getting a phone like this down to size would be a piece of cake. I agree too on the SIM interoperability, that should be easily doable. Well, between cell coverage and call boxes most highways here have some sort of ability to get help, though there are areas here where a satellite phone or powerful radio will be your only help.

[TC_Mits]

Thers is no indication of when the calls were made in relationship to when the husband fell out of the car. It is logical to think that the husband intended to get out of the car, go around to the other side and help his wife out from the other side. At the time of the initial crash there were no life threatening events to require immediate calls for help. If your car slid off the driveway and struck the mailbox, would you dial 911? You would call for roadside assistance if you could not extract the car yourself. I would think that the wife started making the calls after her husband was trapped under the door. The word "Panic" was used in the news story. I suppose you have better knowledge of the events than the police and rescue personnel. How the husband died came from family members. There has been no medical examiner's report.

If it wasn't so pathetic, your version would be laughable for its obvious bias.

The word 'panic' isn't there. Nor is there anything indicating Madeleine succumbed to panic. She frantically struggled to help Arthur when he fell. Is that panic to you?

As to cause and effect, "No signal leads to death" is succinct enough.
And, "doomed to horrible deaths because they couldn’t get a cell phone signal" is fairly clear, I think.


.

It is logical to think that the husband intended to get out of the car, go around to the other side and help his wife out from the other side.

"It is logical" in a strict technical sense, but it's quite a stretch -- really not sensible or a reasonable deduction when you recall that the car is a dozen feet down a steep slope tilted onto Arthur's door and held there by a small tree.

.

If your car slid off the driveway and struck the mailbox, would you dial 911?

I'm not a nonagenarian. Mailboxes aren't usually a dozen feet off the road down a steep bank. 911 or not, the article -- and I -- find it more "logical" to presume they tried to escape only when the phone failed to summon help.

You're giving yourself away with all this twisting of the facts. I could go on, but there's no real point in continuing -- your lack of objectivity is patent.

*****
Arthur and Madeleine Morris

No signal leads to death
TRACY CONNOR
Friday, May 11, 2012

Help should have been a phone call away.

An elderly Manhattan couple who got into a minor car accident at the end of their country house driveway were doomed to horrible deaths because they couldn’t get a cell phone signal.

Stuck in a ditch just 60 feet from their Catskills vacation home, Arthur and Madeleine Morris, devoted to each other for nearly 50 years, desperately dialed for help nine times.

Nine times, the call would not go through — so the panicked seniors tried to escape themselves, with disastrous results.
*****


Perspective instantiates reality.
[From DX by HoFo app.]

[TC_Mits]

If there had been an ambulance 50 feet away, he'd be alive now too. What are you going to do, blame his death on the EMS too, for not being in the right place at the right time? Hell, if his wife or friendshad been in another car following behind instead of in the same car, he'd probably be alive now. You going to blame her or them for that?


No, the person died because he drove off the road. On his own property no less. If he had built a guard rail on the side of his driveway, he'd probably be alive right now.

No point in answering you. You're deaf to human feelings and good sense. Your post misses my point entirely, no reason to expect you'd get it any better a second time because you don't want to understand.

Perspective instantiates reality.
[From DX by HoFo app.]

[ilvla2]

Okay guys, let's just-

[CA]

Na, it's Red Bull time!