The 83-year-old Cobram resident has lived alone since his wife died earlier this year, with his only companion being his dog, Archie.
Mr Biscoff’s problems began in 2010 when he broke his back and neck.
He wasn’t paralysed, but the injury has nonetheless left him with far less mobility.
“My legs are all nerve-damaged, left and right. Can’t do anything about it,” he said.
However, his problems and natural sense of vulnerability increased sharply when Telstra connectivity was cut to the town on Monday, December 4.
According to Mr Biscoff, he had no prior knowledge that the Telstra service would go down, and he was worried that should he have fallen, his emergency contacts wouldn’t have been able to be contacted via an alert system on his watch.
He was also frustrated about how long the outage lasted.
It must be noted that Mr Biscoff isn’t a Telstra customer and that the company sent a communication statement to local government areas and media outlets before the outages.
A Telstra spokesperson told the Courier that customers were also notified from Thursday, November 30 by SMS.
This has been confirmed by Cobram Telstra customers.
A visibly distressed Mr Biscoff said if the worst had happened, he would have been limited in options.
“I (would) have to scream, scream and hope somebody hears me,” he said.
Rolf Biscoff’s neighbour and primary contact, Bianca Quinane, who is a Telstra customer, said the situation was quite concerning.
“I think it’s quite scary. Because, if he has a fall, he’s got no way of contacting anybody,” she said.
Telstra connectivity was fully restored on Monday, December 11.
Regardless of whether any particular communication company undertakes maintenance or repairs, anyone calling 000 can still get through to the emergency services.
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