SPRINGDALE, Ark — Many traveled to their closest AT&T authorized retailer as thousands experienced service outages Thursday morning.
"It's amazing how absolutely trapped and desolate you feel when that happens, and I'm 61 years old. I grew up with payphones," Brad Overturf said.
Overturf is a truck driver from Oklahoma City who was on his way to Springdale. He woke up Thursday morning in Oklahoma with his cell service down.
"As a truck driver, we rely on cell service, and we absolutely cannot survive without it," Overturf said. "We have to make contact with brokers, with the shippers and receivers we deliver to. And when we're down on cell service, an independent trucker, it can cost me up to $1,000 a day."
Overturf was one of many stopping at cell service retail stores on Feb. 22. He said that he luckily still had his AT&T Android tablet to use as a hotspot. He explained that he still had to email his dispatcher to contact the receiver to unload his haul.
"A couple of meetings today with a couple of clients or whatnot. And I was like, 'Well, I can't even fill out the right stuff for the resources that they need,'" Nathan Porter said of his experience Thursday morning.
Porter was trying to access resources for unhoused clients he works with through The Ark of NWA. To handle the issue, he helped drive clients to Murphy Park where they'd have public WiFi.
While some were just trying to work, others were waiting on a life-changing call. Kim Lowe says she's waiting to get the call for a heart transplant. Having been in heart failure since August 16, 2011, her doctors at the Mayo Clinic informed her that she'd need a heart transplant.
"I knew this day was coming, but you’re never fully prepared to actually receive that news. After months of evaluations and tests, I was finally placed on the heart transplant list on January 24, 2024. I could get 'the call' at any moment. Not being able to send or receive calls is alarming considering I could be notified that we need to take a charter jet to Mayo Clinic at any time, day or night," Lowe said.
Lowe said she has had six open-heart surgeries and became the first person at Mayo Clinic to be on Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) life support twice and survive. She's traveling every two weeks for checkups at the Mayo Clinic to see how stable her heart is.
"It’s only a matter of time before I’m hospitalized to receive IV meds to help my heart pump more effectively," Lowe said. "Hopefully, that’s still a couple of months out, though. That being said, I’m so ready for this transplant to be over with and be on the road to recovery. All I want is to grow old with my husband and watch our teen daughter grow up. Plus, it’ll be life-changing to finally have all the energy to experience life that I’ve missed for so long!"
Halfway into Thursday, service was back leaving many wondering what happened during their cell service hiccup.
"After I got unloaded, I came straight here. But what's really strange is I walked in there and handed my phone and five minutes he handed it back and it worked. What's up with that?" Overturf said.
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