TempoLife › Features › Defibrillators and cardiac arrest response › calling-112
The emergency call, and the address problem
What the dispatcher asks, why the phone goes on speaker on the floor, how dispatcher-guided CPR works, and the single hardest question in a rural arrest: where exactly are you?
CPR in sixty seconds
- Unresponsive and not breathing normally? Gasping is not breathing. Treat it as a cardiac arrest.
- Call 112 (113 in Norway). Speaker on, phone on the floor. Stay on the line — the dispatcher will coach you.
- Push hard and fast in the centre of the chest: 5–6 cm in an adult, 100–120 per minute, letting the chest come all the way back up.
- Send somebody else for a defibrillator. Do not go yourself unless it is seconds away. Keep compressing.
- Turn the device on and do what it says. It decides whether to shock. After a shock, go straight back to compressions.
This is a reference written for bystanders, not a diagnosis, a training course or medical advice. It cannot tell you what is wrong with a particular person, and it does not replace the dispatcher on the other end of an emergency call — they can see what is near you and they will talk you through it. If you are worried about your own heart, or about a symptom, that is a conversation with a clinician rather than a page on a website.
Call first, and do not hang up
For a collapsed adult, the call and the compressions start together: if you are alone, dial, put the phone on speaker and set it on the floor beside you, then start pushing. If there is anyone else, they call while you compress. Stay connected for the whole resuscitation. The dispatcher is not a receptionist taking a message — in every country in this region they will count the rhythm with you, tell you where to put your hands, tell you whether a registered defibrillator is close, and tell you when the crew is at the door.
What they will ask, in order
Where. What has happened. Is the person conscious. Are they breathing. Answer in that order and answer short. The location comes first because the ambulance can be moving before the rest of the conversation is finished; everything after it refines the response. Do not narrate — the dispatcher is running a protocol and will get to your details. If you cannot answer a question, say so and move on.
Where the phone helps and where it does not
Modern handsets send a fairly precise position to the emergency centre automatically on a 112 call in most of the region, and the national emergency apps in each country send it deliberately. That works in a city and it works badly in a forest, on a lake, on a trail, in a large industrial site or in a multi-storey building where the floor and the entrance matter more than the coordinates. Have somebody go and stand at the road or the gate to wave the crew in, unlock what needs unlocking, and hold the lift.
Read out your coordinates
The single most useful thing a caller in open country can do is read decimal latitude and longitude aloud. Every dispatcher in the region can take them. The tool on this page reads your browser's location and shows the numbers large enough to read off the screen while you are kneeling on the ground; the national 112 apps do the same thing and also transmit the position. Read the whole number including the decimals, slowly, and say the words north and east.
If you are alone and the AED is not in sight
Do not leave an adult to go looking for a defibrillator you are not sure exists. Compressions started now beat a defibrillator found in four minutes. Ask the dispatcher — they can see the registered devices near you, and in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and parts of Finland they can also send volunteer responders who will arrive carrying one. If somebody else is present, send them with a clear instruction: the address of the cabinet, and to come straight back either way.
A pacer, and your coordinates
Two things a phone can genuinely do at the scene. The first paces your compressions at 110 a minute — the middle of the recommended band — and counts the two-minute marks at which a second rescuer should take over. The second reads your position out of the browser so you can say it aloud to the dispatcher, which is the fastest way to fix the hardest question in a rural emergency. Neither replaces the call.
Compression pacer
Pacer stopped
Target 100–120 per minute · 5–6 cm in an adult · swap rescuer every 2 minutes.
Read your position to the dispatcher
Say the street address if you have one. If you are on a trail, a lake, a forest road or a large site, decimal latitude and longitude are what the dispatcher wants — read the whole number including the decimals, slowly.
Sources: Häirekeskus (Estonian Emergency Response Centre) · Hätäkeskuslaitos (Finnish Emergency Response Centre Agency) · Bendrasis pagalbos centras (Lithuania, 112) · SOS Alarm (Sweden) · checked 2026-09-08
Frequently asked questions
Which number do I call in the Nordic and Baltic countries?
112 works everywhere in the EU and reaches the right service. Norway is the exception worth knowing: 113 is the medical number there, 110 is fire and 112 is police, although 112 will still get you help.
Should I call before or after starting CPR?
Together. Dial, switch to speaker, put the phone down and start compressing. If someone else is there, they make the call while you compress — the compressions must not wait for the conversation.
What if I do not speak the local language?
Emergency centres in this region handle English, and 112 calls can be transferred to interpreters. Say the location first and say it slowly; the address is the part that must survive the language gap.
What to do, right now
Is this a cardiac arrest?
Two checks decide it: not responding, and not breathing normally. The noisy gasping that fools nearly everyone, why a brief seizure at the start is a cardiac sign, and why a heart attack is a different emergency.
Hands-only CPR, in sixty seconds
Centre of the chest, 100 to 120 pushes a minute, 5 to 6 cm deep, let the chest come all the way back up, and do not stop. The rate, the depth, the fatigue problem, and a pacer that keeps you on the beat.
Using a defibrillator, step by step
Open it, turn it on, bare the chest, follow the voice. What the machine decides for you, what it will never do, and the one instruction people get wrong — go straight back to compressions after the shock.
Where the pads go, and what gets in the way
Right collarbone and left ribs, or front and back. Chest hair, sweat, snow, a medicine patch, a pacemaker lump, an underwired bra, a tattoo: which of these actually matter and what to do about each.
"No shock advised" does not mean stop
The most misread sentence in public-access defibrillation. What the machine has actually detected, why roughly two thirds of arrests are not shockable, and why the pads stay on and the compressions continue.
Everything on this subject
Before the emergency, there is a long quiet stretch
Blood pressure, resting heart rate, movement and sleep are the part of this you can act on for years beforehand. TempoLife keeps them in one place, free to start.