Telus says Manitoban ‘would not have survived in any event’ as it asks court to reject lawsuit

Telus says a lawsuit filed by the family of a Manitoba man who died from a heart attack while 911 cellphone service was down should be rejected.

Dean Switzer, 55, died on March 23, 2025 — two days before his 56th birthday, while family and friends near Fisher Branch placed 22 calls to 911. They received a message that said “hang up and call back later.” They frantically performed CPR on him for 90 minutes.

Emergency crews were only alerted after a neighbour reached out to a friend, an off-duty RCMP officer in the area, who managed to summon an ambulance. Switzer was pronounced dead by the paramedics.

His brother filed a lawsuit in the Court of King’s Bench against Telus Communications Inc. in January, arguing Telus breached its duty to Switzer. All of the people who tried to call 911 were Telus customers.

Telus denies allegations of wrongdoing and argues that, under the law, it had no duty to Switzer, in a statement of defence filed late last month.

“Telus… says it was not responsible for ensuring uninterrupted access to 911 emergency services, as alleged or at all,” reads the telecom giant’s court filing.

It argues the service agreement between Telus and Switzer provides that the service may fail for a variety of reasons and that the company does not guarantee service availability.

Further, it argues, the terms indicate Telus is not responsible for any losses caused by the use of, or failure of, its services.

“Telus denies any liability to the plaintiff or any other person, as alleged or at all,” reads the filing.

The company claims it did not cause or contribute to the death.

Further, Telus denies that Switzer would have received care within time if 911 service was working and argues he “would not have survived in any event.”

The company alleges the man’s death was caused, or contributed to, by his “own negligence or contributory negligence.”

Telus wants the court to grant it legal costs, on top of dismissing the lawsuit.

Telus reported to the CRTC in June 2025 that a review of the incident found 177 unsuccessful calls had been made to 911 by 59 Manitobans from the time the service went down on March 22, 2025 at 8:15 p.m. to when it was restored on March 24 around noon.

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In its report to the CRTC, Telus blamed the outage on “an equipment failure on the Bell facilities, that are part of the 911 network that Telus interconnects with Bell to send calls” and that it “does not know the reason” for the failure.

The telecommunication giant said in its report the problem was fixed in a little more than an hour, once it became aware of the issue. Telus said at the time it had disciplined an employee and added backup systems.

Bell, in its own submission to the CRTC in July 2025, blamed Telus.

Bell said only Telus, and no other cellphone carrier, was affected by an outage involving 911 calls, after one of its two gateways for emergency calls did a four-minute reset.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020.  Read more about Erik.

Every piece of reporting Erik produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.