A major outage with the US telecoms carrier AT&T prevented people from calling emergency services on Tuesday.
People attempting to call 911 in the US from a mobile phone running off the AT&T network in some areas were unable to get through to an operator.
Police departments in affected areas of the country advised anyone attempting to reach emergency services to use a landline or a mobile phone with a different service provider.
"At this time AT&T is experiencing a nationwide network service outage. This is effecting the ability to reach 911 on a cell phone if you have AT&T," Tarrant County police department in Texas warned.
"This is a nationwide outage on AT&T. We will provide updates as they come in."
People were also advised to call local police stations directly.
It is not the first time AT&T wireless customers have been unable to make calls to 911 as a result of an outage.
In March 2017, the Federal Communications Commission received reports of widespread AT&T 911 call outages.
"Earlier this morning some wireless customers may have been unable to connect to 911," a spokesperson for AT&T told The Independent.
"This has been resolved and we apologise to anyone who was affected."
