A system and method is disclosed for providing rescue channel communications between base stations in a wireless communication system. The invention comprises a source base station that is capable of sending messages to a rescue base station to cause the rescue base station to establish a rescue channel for a mobile station that has lost its traffic channel. The messages for establishing rescue channels communications between the base stations comprise Internetwork Operating System (IOS) messages that have been modified to add rescue channel indicator information. In an alternate advantageous embodiment of the invention, specially designed rescue channel activation messages and rescue channel activation acknowledgment messages are used to establish a rescue channel for the mobile station.