A friend of 16-year-old Morgan Huelin told a court he tried to call 999 as he lay unconscious the morning after a house party.
The friend asked four others to help move him outside, Jersey Youth Court heard.
The five teenagers deny perverting the course of justice in connection with Morgan's death.
The friend, who can't be named for legal reasons, is the first of the boys to take to the stand.
He had been friends with Mr Huelin at school, but more recently he'd distanced himself as Mr Huelin's drug taking "escalated".
But after the party that night Mr Huelin asked if he could stay over and he didn't feel he could say no.
The friend said he found Mr Huelin asleep in the garage the next day.
He told the court: "I knew he'd been taking drugs. I didn't want my parents finding him in the state he was in."
He asked his friends who were asleep in the house for help moving him down the road.
"I said to them, we needed to get him away from my parents, we needed to wake him up around the corner."
When asked by Advocate Mike Preston if he tried to call for help, he said he had used a friend's phone to dial 999, but it wouldn't connect.
After being asked why he didn't tell his parents, the teenager said: "I thought 999 was the safest way to deal with Morgan. I thought he would wake up, I didn't know it was so serious."
Magistrate Bridget Shaw dismissed a request from the defence to throw out the case.
The trial continues.
A Jersey teenager's drug taking "escalated" before his death, a court has heard.