Important Emergency Services to know — Moving to Germany
Moving to a new country has lots of nuances that might seem no-brainers for the locals, but not for the newly arrived expats. Knowing the emergency numbers to call in case of an incidence is one of them.
First things First
Here are the numbers
- Police: 110
- Fire department: 112
- Ambulance: 112
- Non-emergency medical (doctor on call): 116 117
- Nurse advice line: 00800 4759 2330
Emergency German phrases
While English is a language fluent to Germans, especially to the emergency services, there might be cases that you meet an officer of the public that won’t be as familiar, for example in rural areas. For this reason, it is handy to learn or bookmark some key phrases:
- Police: Polizei
- Fire service: Feuerwehr
- Rescue service: Rettungsdienst
- Ambulance: Rettungswagen or Krankenwagen
- Pharmacy: Apotheke
- Hospital: Das Krankenhaus
- Medicine: Medizin
- Poisoning emergency: Vergiftungen Notfall
- Help!: Hilfe!
- Ambulance: Krankenwagen
- It’s an emergency: Es ist ein Notfall/dringend.
- I’m feeling sick: Mir ist schlecht.
- I’m in pain: Ich habe Schmerzen.
- I need a doctor: Ich brauche einen Arzt.
- I need a hospital: Ich brauche ein Krankenhaus.
- There’s been an accident: Es gab einen Unfall.
National emergency services in Germany
In Germany three are three primary emergency responders namely: the the police (Polizei), fire service (Feuerwehr) and Emergency Medical Service (Rettungsdienst).
For urgent medical treatment, you can also immediately go to any hospital’s emergency room or accident and emergency department (A&E), which are called Notaufnahme.
