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Calling an ambulance: what the dispatcher asks, and why
The questions in the order they come, why you must not hang up, what to do in the minutes before the crew arrives, and when they will send something other than an ambulance.
This page explains how the system works. It is not a diagnosis, it cannot tell you how urgent your own situation is, and it is not a directory: it carries no clinic addresses, opening hours or visiting times, because those change and a wrong one sends you to a closed door. If someone may be seriously ill or injured, call the emergency number — 112 across the region, 113 for medical emergencies in Norway — and if you are unsure, call your country’s advice line rather than deciding from a web page.
The number, and the one exception
Across the European Union 112 reaches emergency services from any phone, including a locked one and one with no credit, and it is answered in the local language with English available. Norway is the exception in this region and keeps three separate numbers: 113 for medical emergencies, 112 for police and 110 for fire. Calling the wrong Norwegian number gets you transferred rather than refused, but the transfer costs seconds that a cardiac arrest does not have. Everywhere else in this family, 112 is the whole answer, and it is worth teaching a child that single fact rather than a list. Modern handsets also send a location to the emergency service automatically on many networks, but that is a backstop, not a substitute: a spoken street address is still faster and more precise than anything the phone can work out on its own.
The questions, in order
Dispatchers work to a protocol and the order is not negotiable, because it is designed so that help can be sent before the questioning finishes. Where are you — street, number, floor, entrance code, or a road number and a landmark. What has happened. Is the person conscious. Are they breathing, and how. How old are they, roughly. Your phone number. The location comes first because it is the only answer without which nothing can be dispatched; modern systems also read a location from the phone, but a spoken address beats it. Then come condition-specific questions: for chest pain, when it started and what it feels like; for a stroke, when the person was last seen well; for an injury, what hit what and how fast.
Why you must not hang up
The call is not a form being filled in. In most services the ambulance is dispatched while you are still talking, and the rest of the call is the dispatcher preparing you and the patient: how to open the airway, how to position someone who is unconscious but breathing, how to compress a bleed, and above all how to do chest compressions. Telephone-guided CPR measurably changes survival in cardiac arrest, and it only works if the line stays open. Put the phone on speaker and leave it on. If you must move, take it with you.
The minutes before they arrive
There is useful work to do. Unlock the door and, if you can, send someone outside to wave the crew in — finding the right entrance is a routine cause of lost minutes in blocks of flats and on farm tracks. Turn on the outside light. Shut the dog in another room. Clear a path wide enough for a stretcher and move the furniture that is in it. Gather the medicines, or better, the boxes themselves, along with any allergy information and the name of the person’s doctor. If the patient is a child, know their weight. If there is a folder of previous discharge summaries, put it by the door. The what-to-bring page lists the rest.
When they send something else
Emergency medical services in this region increasingly triage the call rather than sending a vehicle to everything. A call can be answered with advice, with a referral to the out-of-hours service, with a nurse-staffed car rather than a full crew, or with an ambulance that arrives without lights because the assessment does not warrant them. That is a clinical decision, and it is not a refusal of care: it is the same triage logic as the one used at the hospital door, applied earlier. If the person becomes worse while you wait, call back — the case can be upgraded, and dispatchers expect those calls.
Sources: 112 is the single European emergency number in all EU member states; Norway retains 113 for medical emergencies · checked 2026-09-08
Frequently asked questions
What number is the ambulance?
112 in Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania and everywhere else in the European Union. In Norway it is 113 — 112 there reaches the police and 110 the fire service.
What will they ask me first?
Where you are. The exact location is the one answer without which nothing can be sent, so give it before anything else: street and number, floor, entrance, or a road number and a visible landmark. Then what happened, whether the person is conscious, whether they are breathing, their rough age and your phone number.
Should I stay on the line?
Yes. The ambulance is usually already on its way while you are still talking, and the rest of the call is the dispatcher coaching you — opening an airway, controlling bleeding, or guiding chest compressions, which changes survival in cardiac arrest. Put the phone on speaker and keep it with you.
What if they decide not to send an ambulance?
That is a clinical triage decision, not a refusal — you may be given advice, directed to an out-of-hours service, or sent a different kind of vehicle. If the person gets worse, call again and say what has changed; the case can be upgraded.
Is an ambulance free?
Emergency ambulance care is provided in these countries as emergency care, and in Estonia it is free and given to everyone regardless of insurance status. Charging rules for non-emergency transport differ by country, so the national body named on each country page is the authority.
Related pages
Emergency department, out-of-hours or your own doctor?
Five doors into the same health service, what each is actually for, and the two questions that pick the right one in about ten seconds.
How the emergency department decides who goes first
The five-level ladder, the target times that go with each colour, why arrival order is irrelevant, and what to do when you get worse in the waiting room.
Stroke, heart attack and sepsis: the conditions with a clock
The three emergencies where the treatment that works expires, the signs that should end the discussion, and why the ambulance beats the car even when the car is faster.
Which emergency department for a child
Where the paediatric emergency care actually is in this region, the age rules that override everything, and the signs that make a child’s illness a same-hour problem.
How published waiting-list figures actually work
Two completely different numbers get called "the waiting time", the published figure is almost never yours, and there are four things that genuinely shorten a wait.
Every country, every number
The hub: emergency and advice numbers for the whole region, the access rules and all the country pages.
The four questions a hospital always asks
Age, weight, what you take and when it started. TempoLife keeps the medicine log, the symptom timeline and the measurements in one place, so the answers exist before anyone asks for them.