The darkness threatened to swallow us whole.

By this point, I had a flashlight out the window, hunting for the white line on the edge of the road. Our headlights were now so dim, the oncoming traffic barely knew we were there.  As we felt our way through the fading twilight, we crested a gentle hill. The car stumbled and gave up.

Bob and I are both veteran classic car owners, so we knew we weren’t getting out of this one easily. We’d taken what turned out to be a poorly calculated risk, knowing that our generator’s control box, a sealed unit full of windings and other old school contrivances from Edison’s era, was trying hard to let us down.

We’d put up with it all week at a classic MG event in Phoenix, with some minor fuss, including replacing the generator, which was easier to find locally than a healthy control box. Despite the late hour, we thought we could make it to Cortez, Colorado, our scheduled overnight stop. The current draw from the headlights did us in.

For us, it wasn’t the What went wrong as much as the Where. We were in Arizona, northbound on U.S. 191, a two lane ribbon of asphalt cut through an epic Western movie backlot, in the heart of the Navajo Nation, known locally as The Res. Covering more than 27,000 square miles across parts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, the Res is vast, sparsely populated, and not without its problems. Its residents struggle with limited economic opportunity, their share of alcohol and drug abuse, and the highest crime rate of all Native American reservations in the U.S.

There was virtually no shoulder. After managing to push our stricken 1967 MGB to a narrow perch just off the road, we started phoning. I worked the AAA while Bob dialed 911. Bob’s experience set the tone for this misadventure. “Can you help? we’re broken down on Highway 191.” “I’ll transfer you,” the dispatcher said. A few clicks and a buzz later, nothing. Dead air. We called back. “This is Utah 911. Hold on, I’ll transfer you.” Another failed transfer. After the third failed attempt, Bob quit dialing. In the meantime, I was having my own struggles with the AAA. My membership had expired the previous month, so I was transferred to my local club for reinstatement. After wrestling with several dropped calls, my phone rang. “AAA called and said you were in danger, are you all right?” my anxious wife asked. Since our dark green car had virtually disappeared in the gloom, I’d told the AAA dispatcher that we were not in a safe place, thinking that might add some urgency to our situation. Before the call dropped, the AAA dispatcher advised us to call 911. Then, somewhat mysteriously, they called my home. I took advantage of the good connection and asked my wife to work things from there. We needed a wrecker. How hard could that possibly be?

Cars going at highway speeds passed us within inches. We waited in the dark and cold for the cavalry. It wasn’t coming. Our phones were both the older flip types without map-based apps able to help pinpoint our location. While I’m told the AAA has contracts with towing companies in the some of the counties surrounding the Res, the travel distances involved and the rates paid by the AAA barely make it worth their while, so they’ll not be wasting gas and time trying to find you if you don’t know exactly where you are.

Gille and Margaret to the Rescue

One of the cars that passed us turned around and came back. A young Navajo woman named Margaret asked about our trouble. “We need a tow,” I told her. “Is there any chance one of us could get a lift into town?” I knew how this must have looked. She was alone in the car with a sleeping toddler. “My husband has a trailer,” she said. He’s just up ahead. He asked me to come back and check on you.” Off she went, and her husband Gille returned in a pickup towing a low loader.

Gille had turned his life around after a bad time with Crystal Meth and alcohol. Fresh out of rehab, he saw Margaret at a gas station one day, and was entranced. The gas he was pumping overflowed, soaking his clothes and shoes. “I thought he was stalking me,” Margaret told me. Sometimes these things work out. Gille found God and left the substance abuse behind. When we met, Margaret was pregnant with their second child.

Like all members of the Navajo nation, Gille gets by in its “grow your own” economy doing whatever he can. He works as a mechanic in a small town near the Grand Canyon, but does other odd jobs when the opportunity presents itself, including, apparently, roadside rescue. After some gentle negotiating, we struck a deal on the tow fee. It was twice what we were expecting, but we were grateful to pay it. Once we were underway, Margaret told me, “this is really not a good place to break down. People get robbed and beaten up. Their cars get set on fire.”

There’s no doubt it’s a tough place. There were 42 homicides on the Res in 2013. That translates to a per capita murder rate of 18.8 per 100,000 people – four times the national rate. About 280 police officers respond to about 250,000 911 dispatches a year, across an area slightly larger than the state of West Virginia.

We worked quickly, managing to get the MG on the trailer and safely back to Cortez, thanks to our new friends. We made it home the next day after installing a new battery, making sure we arrived before dark. While we waited for the alternator conversion kit Bob ordered, I set out to discover just what the hell had gone wrong.

It turns out that law enforcement agencies in Utah, New Mexico and Arizona have access to the Res through a reciprocal agreement with the Navajo Nation Police (NNP). For whatever reason, the wireless carrier routed our 911 calls to a Utah 911 call center. After it was determined where we were on the Res, we were then transferred to an NNP-staffed call center serving our area. The trunk line apparently was down, so our calls were continually dropped. My wife got through to the NNP, who called to check on us well after we’d arrived in Cortez, and had a decent signal.

In 2014, the Navajo Nation undertook an important step to improve 911 connectivity across the Res.  A multi-year initiative includes consolidation of seven area 911 call centers into one, with adequate staffing to handle the million-plus 911 calls they receive each year. The emphasis is currently on land line emergency calls, as new carrier agreements and circuits are required in order to more effectively field wireless emergency calls. Geospatial location reporting, the technology that automatically alerts the call center to your location, is another big infrastructure investment, money the Navajo Nation may not be able to find any time soon.

I spoke with a regional director of the AAA who offered the following advice: if you have a bad cell signal, try texting for help. Texts and data often go through in areas where voice calls are dropped. You’re best texting a friend or loved one, however. While text-to-911 is being rolled out nationwide, at this writing only about 500 counties have signed on.  Consider using an app like the one AAA offers its members. This app and ones of similar design like urgent.ly and HONK transmit your location information to a call center. It’s definitely worthwhile, because if you enjoy driving in wide open spaces, there are still plenty of places out there where they may never, ever get your call.