GPS Hack Guided Truck to School

Today the FBI confirmed that it was a spoof of the signal from the Global Positioning Satellite that was used to direct the Avondale Trucking Company truck to the site of the fatal chlorine attack on an elementary school yesterday. The release of chlorine gas from the one-ton cylinders carried on that truck resulted in twenty deaths and hundreds of students, teachers and nearby residents being hospitalized.

Johnathan Quest, an FBI spokesman told reporters that there were confirmed reports from an Uber driver and a UPS driver in the area yesterday of problems with the locations provided by their UPS systems. Additionally, he noted that Christopher Seeling, the Avondale Trucking driver killed in the attack, was in the process of texting his dispatcher about GPS problems when he was shot. He was not able to call his dispatcher because cell phone signals in the area were being blocked.

Quest told reports that the text message said: “At GPS location for treatment plant. No plant here, just school.”

The Federal Emergency Grant Administration (FEGA) is trying to assist local hospitals with the treatment of the large number of people, mostly elementary school students, injured in the attack. The number of ventilators available at emergency rooms and hospitals is not sufficient for the number of people involved. Isham M. Gelt, the FEGA spokesman that about five of the deaths that have occurred overnight would have been prevented if additional ventilators had been available. The military, Gelt said, is airlifting in equipment from bases around the world to aid in the treatment of the injured.

A local doctor who declined to be identified for this piece explained on background that ventilators were an expensive piece of medical treatment equipment that helped people breath when their lungs were damaged. This type of equipment is not needed that often in an area like Palo Alto, so the high number of lung injuries involved in this incident quickly overwhelmed the number of machines available locally.

Rep. Harvey Milk (D,CA) who is visiting the scene of the attack today said that he is calling for hearings next week about the lack of ventilators. He wanted to know why local hospitals did not have an adequate number of these vital pieces of equipment to treat all of the affected patients. He said: “This is another example of the poor state of healthcare in this country. Hospitals are more interested in saving money than saving lives.”