A user equipment UE with an active connection (radio or logical) with a wireless network needs to establish an emergency service. The UE unilaterally deactivates an active session or context with the wireless network, and thereafter sends to the wireless network signaling to establish the emergency service, in which the signaling specifically identifies the service as an emergency service. In one embodiment (FIG. 1) the UE locally detaches from an active packet domain communication and sends an emergency attach so as to clear resources. In another embodiment (FIG. 2) the UE deactivates one or more contexts and sends an extended service request which identifies one or more context which remains active after the deactivating. In another embodiment (FIG. 3), after the signaling to establish the emergency service (SERVICE REQUEST) the UE sends a deactivation message explicitly indicating which context(s) is/are deactivated (PDN CONTEXT DEACTIVATION or PDN DISCONNECT REQUEST).