Imagine picking up the phone and dialing 911 in an emergency, only to be told help is not on the way.

That's exactly what one northeast El Paso man said happened to him Monday.

It didn't take long for Donald Fischer to realize something was wrong when his good friend and roommate was started having a seizure.

"I did what you're supposed to do; I called 911," said Fischer.

When dispatchers answered, this is what he heard:

Dispatcher: "911, what's your emergency?"

Fischer: "Right now ma'am, this is not an emergency. I have a question for you. Is this Otero County or El Paso County?

Dispatcher: "This is Otero County. County."

Fischer: "Can you transfer me to El Paso County? I'm calling from El Paso County."

Dispatcher: "Actually, I can't. It's across state lines, but I can give you their number."

Fischer called his cellphone provider, AT&T, to find out why his call was routed to a different county.

"The towers, one of them four, is the closest one and that's an Otero County tower," said Fischer.

But an even bigger concern of Fischer's is why dispatchers in New Mexico weren't able to transfer his call to El Paso emergency services.

"I'm trying to get an ambulance out here. I'm trying to get one police officer out here to ascertain that we do need an ambulance," said Fischer.

KFOX 14 spoke to the Otero County sheriff today.

He said that unlike many local dispatch offices, their equipment is not capable of rerouting.

He said they've tried to get the El Paso 911 on their transferable list but the state of New Mexico, which is in charge of the system, said it can't be done.

So they deal with the issue one of three ways:

Dispatchers give callers a local non-emergency number, take the information from callers and then make the call to El Paso, or keep callers on the line and act as middlemen.

"I know that I don't, that I can't call 911 from this area. But how many of these other neighbors know?" asked Fischer.

Fischer's roommate received treatment and is recovering in a local hospital.

AT&T officials released the following statement about the incident: 

“After investigating the concern of an El Paso County resident regarding the routing of a wireless 911 call in an area on the Texas and New Mexico border, we determined the call in question was properly routed to the assigned Public Safety Answering Point. This is an example where the service area for a cell site overlaps emergency response boundaries and in those situations it is up to the emergency operator to respond or transfer the call.”