- Ambulance 112
- Fire 112
- Police 110
- Citizens' hotline in the event of flooding or severe weather 0228 717171
- Doctors' Emergency Call Centre (Arztnotrufzentrale) 116117
- On duty Pharmacies 01805 - 93 88 88
- On duty Dentists 0180 - 59 86 700 (recorded message in German)
- Poisoning emergency (0228) 192 40
- University Children's Clinic (0228) 287 33333
- Emergency Transport (0228) 19 222 and 65 22 11
What belongs in an emergency call?
When making an emergency call, use the following procedure as a guide:
- Where did it happen? (district, street, house number, intersection if applicable)
- What has happened? (fire, accident, medical emergency)
- How many casualties are there?
- Who is calling? (name, address, telephone number)
- Wait for questions from the control center! In any case, it is important that you let the control center officer conduct and end the call.
Things to know about the emergency call
Using the emergency number 112 avoids time delays in an emergency and enables control center personnel to gain important information about the incident during the phone call. If you first dial the police emergency number in the event of a fire, accident or medical emergency, valuable time and information will be lost. If you have the choice, please use a landline for the emergency call. Very important: Let the control center employee make and end the call.
If you make an emergency call via a landline, your location can be determined by the control center. This makes the emergency call quicker and safer.
By the way: All emergency calls are recorded. This not only provides legal security, it also enables the control center staff to replay the call immediately. This helps in cases where the emergency call is suddenly interrupted or the language was not understood correctly.
Emergency call via mobile network
Many emergency calls are received via cell phones. This has significantly shortened the reporting time on highways, in wooded areas or from rural areas. However, it is important to note a few special features.
- The control center can only determine your location with great effort and relatively imprecisely. Therefore, try to orientate yourself as precisely as possible.
- On highways or expressways, the control center must know between which junctions you are located and in which direction you are traveling.
- In wooded areas or rural areas, arrange a meeting point with the control center from which you can direct the emergency services to the scene. If you do not know a suitable meeting point in the vicinity, try to describe the location as precisely as possible using roads, landmarks (farms, water towers, large trees, lakes, etc.) or places marked on maps such as shelters, monuments or other places of interest.
- When an emergency call is made via a mobile phone network, the call is connected to the control center responsible for the respective base station. At city or district borders, this may mean that you are not connected from the emergency location to the responsible control center, but to a neighboring one. If you are not already asked for this when making an emergency call, please also state the district and the name of the county or city.
- Voice-over-IP telephony is also becoming increasingly important. In this case, the connection is not established from subscriber to subscriber via the telephone network, but via the Internet data network and providers, which represent the interface to the telephone network. Depending on the provider, when the emergency call 112 is dialed, the call is forwarded to the responsible control center at the billing address or to the responsible control center at the provider's headquarters. This can lead to misunderstandings when specifying the location and thus to significant delays in an emergency. Therefore, when making emergency calls via VoIP, always state the municipality and district in addition to the street and house number to avoid confusion.
House numbers and street signs must be clearly visible
Poorly visible or non-existent house numbers and overgrown street signs are not only a major nuisance for fire and rescue services, but also delay the arrival of help that may be urgently needed. Especially in rural areas, the search for house numbers often takes a lot of time. Access roads to houses and farmsteads often lack house number signs. Often the numbers are also missing on the buildings. It is then impossible to find your way and even more time is lost.
If it is a complicated approach to your house or the respective emergency location, describe the exact route to the control center dispatcher and send someone to the street to direct the emergency vehicles so as not to lose valuable time.