E-911 No Dial Tone

[Drummadude]

Good evening,

This afternoon I was driving on the highway when I saw a boy walking down the left median. I immediately dialed 911 on my Verizon cell phone.

The phone went into "Emergency Mode" but I never heard any dial tones nor did an operator pick up. As soon as I exited this mode, I recognized the communications center phone number calling and they asked if I had called. Thankfully, a cruiser showed up before I finished explaining the situation.

Do you know why there were no dial tones with a good 4-bar signal? They knew I called but was it a switchboard problem? Just wondering if this sort of situation is somewhat common, or perhaps there were many calls at once. This was frightening to think of a life or death situation and this happening again.