nusoap and fault problem

[mrfree]

In my webservice I need to respond to a remote function call with a fault if my db connection in down:

[...]
   if( !mysql_connect( ... ) ) $server->fault(...);
[...]
   function test (...) {
      [...]
   }

The problem is: when a service requestor call the function test and the connection doesn't work, I want to send him a fault message, but the method fault() in class soap_server doesn't work for me...
In this case I need to exit script returning a fault message to client.