By Dan Breitwieser, WCJB TV 20 News.

28- year old Matt Cason was badly burned while trying to incinerate his garbage on August 29th. But when he dialed 9-1-1, he didn't get the response he was expecting.

It's a voice recording of an emergency call like you've never heard. No response, no busy signal, just the chatter of dispatch in the background. Just a minute earlier, Cason's wife told a 9-1-1 operator her husband was badly injured. But when he called while driving to the hospital, he got nothing--for more than a minute.

"How this occured, we do not know at this time," says Lt. Chuck Brewington. "But it is an issue that we're working to try and find a resolution."

Columbia County dispatchers click on an icon on the bottom left corner of their screen to pick up an emergency call. If it doesn't pick up after three rings, an alarm goes off over the door. But on August 29th, neither happened.

"We're extremely sorry that it did take place," says Brewington. "It was nothing intentionally done"

Brewington says it's the first time the two-year-old equipment has ever done something like this. He hopes the County Commission spends 400-thousand dollars on upgrades on the equipment--but says technicians have still not been able to figure out what happened.

Matt Cason told WCJB he just left the burn unit Tuesday afternoon with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on 30-percent of his body. He hopes to share his side of the story Wednesday.

The equipment manufacturer Positron has not returned any messages.