As of: February 11, 2024, 5:25 p.m
By: Elisa Buhrke
Comments
Press
Split
A social media post sparked a discussion about mass false calls to emergency services.
The Munich fire department classifies the allegations.
Munich - The emergency number 112 is there for people who are in acute danger to their lives - for example in the event of fires, accidents or a heart attack.
Unfortunately, it is all too often misused for other purposes.
This is how a suspected employee from Munich describes it in his post on the social media platform Jodel: “I work for the emergency call.
Now, so many people are calling because of bullshit that sometimes I just hang up.” He complains that there are other ways to get help for minor illnesses: “The fire department is not a caretaker!
And it is not forbidden to go to the clinic or the family doctor privately!”
Under the post, a discussion broke out among users about the absurd situations they have already experienced when calling emergency services or in the emergency room.
Our editorial team therefore asked the Munich Fire Department what the emergency call really is like in Munich - and in which cases it would be better to dial a different number.
Employees are upset about the number of emergency calls: “Staff almost doubled”
“We have almost doubled the staff compared to 10 years ago.
Currently around 150 pocket calls every day,” writes one user.
By pocket calls he means calls that are triggered unintentionally by the smartphone.
Others report that someone only came to the emergency room with a splinter in their finger or that some companies generally call 911 because they believe that this is the only way work-related accidents are covered by insurance.
The Munich Fire Department explains in which cases the emergency number should really be called.
A suspected employee had complained about Jodel about a large number of false calls.
© Collage: IMAGO / Einsatz-Report24 (symbolic image) and screenshot https://share.jodel.com/
The post creator adds: “You shouldn’t actually forget that dispatchers and emergency call lines are also busy for bullshit and the real emergency has to wait!”
(Our Munich newsletter regularly informs you about all important stories from the Isar metropolis. Register here.)
Munich Fire Department classifies: “They try to help people on the phone”
At the request of our editorial team, they report on how the Munich Fire Department deals with false emergency calls or even doorbell pranks.
“There are actually false calls, but as a fire department we of course try to help people on the phone, even if it may not be within our area of responsibility,” answers Chief Fire Chief Franziskus Bronnhuber.
The control center employees would therefore generally not hang up - such an approach would violate their own principles.
Instead, always try to “end the conversation correctly.”
Bronnhuber cannot assess whether the creator of the Jodel post is an employee of the fire department in Munich.
My news
“We've got it soon, the two firefighters thought”: emergency services describe a strange incident
The first luxury brands are leaving Oberpollinger – a bitter surprise for regular Munich customers
2 hours ago
Suspected rupture of the spleen: Police officer in hospital after traffic stop
Tens of thousands of people expected: sea of lights for democracy and against racism in Munichread
Man goes duck hunting with harpoon in Munich
According to the survey: These are the best Munich restaurants in 2024read
Statistics: Number of emergency calls in Munich
The Integrated Control Center (ILS) receives all emergency calls from Munich on number 112.
In 2022 (the most recent annual report currently available), this totaled 1,165,140 calls.
So an average of 3192 per day and 133 per hour.
In just over a tenth of these, i.e. a total of 156,403 calls, an ambulance actually resulted in an ambulance being transported.
But there are always strange calls: “One caller had a question about a doctor’s bill, another caller wanted to know what the number of the used car center was.” There are also frequent calls triggered automatically by smartphones or smart watches.
Bronnhuber advises assessing when an emergency call is really the right thing to do: “Whenever people's lives are in danger, for example in accidents or fires, you have to call the emergency number.
It is also legitimate for very severe pain.” However, the situation is different for “minor illnesses that are not time-critical”: in this case you should contact the statutory health insurance emergency service on 116117.
Bronnhuber has some good news: “The number of emergency calls has hardly changed over the last few years.”
You can find more news in our tz app, now in an improved design with more personalization functions.
Directly available for download, more information can be found here.
Are you an enthusiastic user of WhatsApp?
There too, tz.de/muenchen will now keep you up to date via a new Whatsapp channel.
Click here to go directly to the channel.