Five Calls to 120. No Answer. He Died 800 Meters From the Hospital.

Ms. Li's father was seventy-three years old. At noon on September 7th, he went out alone. Later rescue records suggest he may have suffered a sudden heart attack.

The first person to notice something was wrong was the owner of a shop near the Archives Bureau. The shopkeeper later recalled that the old man was leaning against the wall, his face pale, unable to speak. The shopkeeper took out his phone and dialed 120.

The call log shows the first call was made at 1:16 PM. It rang, but no one answered. The shopkeeper hung up, waited about a minute, and dialed again. Still no answer. A third time, a fourth, a fifth. From 1:16 PM to 1:26 PM, in ten minutes, the same number was dialed five times. All five calls went unanswered.

The shopkeeper didn't know what was happening on the other end. There was no busy signal, no "all operators are busy" message, no hold music. It just kept ringing, and no one ever picked up.

At 1:24 PM, the shopkeeper called 110. The dispatcher took down the address and the situation. Eight minutes later, at 1:32 PM, the 110 command center replied to the shopkeeper: they couldn't get through to 120 either. The command center said they had contacted the security office of Fujin City Central Hospital and asked them to relay the message to the emergency center.

Someone from the security office dialed the personal mobile phone of an emergency center staff member. At 1:33 PM, the emergency center received the relayed message. At 1:34 PM, a vehicle was dispatched. At 1:37 PM, the ambulance arrived at the entrance of the Archives Bureau. At 1:45 PM, the old man was taken into the emergency room. The diagnosis was "suspected sudden cardiac death from myocardial infarction." Resuscitation failed, and he died.

From the shopkeeper's first call to 120 to the old man entering the emergency room, twenty-nine minutes had passed.

The distance from the Fujin City Archives Bureau to Fujin City Central Hospital, as measured on a map, is less than eight hundred meters. Driving time: one minute.

Later, the 120 Emergency Center of Fujin City Central Hospital issued a certification document. It stated: On September 7th at 1:30 PM, the hospital security office called the personal mobile phone of an emergency center staff member, informing them that a patient had been unable to get through to 120, and that the person reporting had been transferred through the 110 command center to the security office chief, who provided the location. At 1:34 PM, the emergency center dispatched a team to the area west of the Archives Bureau. When the public called, neither of the emergency center's two 120 landline phones rang. The driver and dispatcher on duty were both at their posts and did not receive any emergency calls.

The hospital told the family: On September 6th, a fiber optic cable belonging to the communications carrier malfunctioned, and on September 7th the signal was still intermittent and had not returned to normal. At the time of the incident, emergency center staff were on duty as normal, but because of the fiber optic cable fault, the phones did not ring.

Ms. Li said she could not accept this explanation.

"The 120 emergency number is a patient's lifeline. Even if such a special situation occurs, backup plans should be activated to keep the emergency line open. If my father could have been taken for treatment earlier, perhaps the outcome would have been different."

The hospital suggested that Ms. Li resolve the matter through judicial proceedings. The case is now with the local medical dispute mediation committee for mediation.

A reporter contacted the 120 Emergency Center of Fujin City Central Hospital. Staff said the mediation committee had intervened and the local health commission would issue a conclusion. The reporter contacted the Fujin City Health Commission; staff said they would report to their superiors and then reply. Then a staff member from Fujin Central Hospital contacted the reporter, saying that at the health commission's request, they would reply regarding the situation. When the reporter asked when the hospital and emergency center were notified of the fiber optic cable fault, and whether there were corresponding emergency plans, the staff member said they were not sure and would need to report to higher authorities before replying.

The reporter contacted the communications carrier involved. Staff said they would conduct an investigation.

In June 2020, in Huai'an, Jiangsu, a sixty-five-year-old resident suffered a sudden heart attack. Family members dialed 120, calling more than twenty times over half an hour, but could never get through. The cause was a power outage around the emergency station. The emergency station argued that the power outage was force majeure. The first-instance court accepted that argument. The family lost. The Huai'an Intermediate People's Court reversed the decision on appeal. The appellate judgment stated: An emergency station is different from an ordinary social service institution; it should ensure that the 120 emergency line is open 24 hours a day and should promptly activate emergency plans when sudden incidents such as power outages occur. The emergency station admitted it had a backup power source but failed to activate it in time. The power outage did not constitute force majeure that was "unforeseeable, unavoidable, and insurmountable." The emergency station bore 20 percent of the compensation liability.

In another case, a pregnant woman with a cerebral hemorrhage died after multiple calls to 120 went unanswered. The court ruled that the emergency center bore 70 percent of the compensation liability.

The two 120 landlines at the Fujin City Emergency Center were connected to the same fiber optic cable. The cable broke on September 6th, and by September 7th it still had not been fixed. Two phones, silent at the same time.

When the old man was taken to the emergency room, he was eight hundred meters from the hospital.