Make sure your 911 call works

On Labor Day my soon to  be adult step son called in a panic  because he found his brother unconscious on his bedroom floor. I arrived at his house in about 5 minutes and immediately dialed 911. All I got was a frozen screen on my phone that said emergency call. After 2 more unsuccessful attempts we  used another phone. When the EMT's arrived about 20 minutes later they said he had passed. Who knows how  things would have worked out if the first call went through.
Believe it or not this was the first timeI ever called 911. I never imagined that it wouldn't work and never saw a reminder to have a phone tested. In fact I was told that if you call 911 and it's not an emergency you could get in trouble. A couple of weeks later I called VERIZON tech  support and they were unusually helpful, calling and texting me the next  couple  of days. After they were   unable to fix the problem from their office they arranged for me to FedEx it to them and they would give me a phone to use until they fixed it. In a couple of days they called to say that it was unfixable.
I want to raise money for a survey to find out the extent of this problem and  the ability to have our phones 911 calls checked monthly and save lives and heart ache.