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They should just be able to forward you to 911.

And, also, is there an major epidemic of emergency calls being placed to 311 or similar?

The Suicide Prevention Hotline may go to a national center and forwarding to local 911 may be complicated.

If cell phones can figure out how to call local 911 from wherever they are I'm sure this can be done.

Cellphone locating for 911 is a whole mess and sometimes doesn't work anywhere near as well as you'd like it to and requires the police to drive around block sized areas trying to find whoever needs help.

Add in the complexity of transferring calls (how many times has your call been dropped when a support agent transfers you?) and this is a bucket of trouble.

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