Heres the rest of the story from the couple, tom and Karen Evans of everret. Karen dials 911 on her cell and get transferred two time and ends up with the fire department.
Joe and I have been attending boating classes and during a presentation given by Stu Smith (Whatcom County Sheriff), he mentioned that in an emergency boating situation, contact with the Coast Guard can be made directly with your cell phone. We did not know that.
I looked in some of the other C-Brat forums to see if I could find something on this subject and although it's most likely been mentioned somewhere, I couldn't locate it. So with Tom's (and crew) recent rescue in mind, there's always the possibility that someone might end up in the water with a cell phone as their only means of communication.
From the boating class: For an emergency boating situation it's (*24 + Send) or (*CG + Send) if you have Verizon Wireless.
But this is what happened when I called Verizon Wireless to confirm that (*24 + Send) is the correct number for emergency CG assistance. I certainly did not want to be giving out the wrong advice...... Would you believe that the Verizon operator had never heard of an emergency number for the Coast Guard but would look it up for me. Her reply was that the number is (*26 + Send) for Oregon & Washington. I asked her if she was sure of that number as I'd been told (*24 + Send). She checked with her supervisor and guess what!!, their manual was wrong :thdown. She said that a correction would be made immediately. Wow! Talk about somebody giving out the wrong information!
So this is from Verizon Wireless: For an emergency boating situation (Oregon and Washington) it's (*24 + Send) or (*CG + Send)
I don't have any information about other states or other cellular companies.
P.S. Remember those life vests and having a whistle attached along with a small waterproof flashlight. Doo do occurs.
Ruth and Joe
R-Matey