The minutes before an ambulance arrives are the part of an emergency nobody rehearses. Most people can describe roughly what a paramedic does and almost nobody can describe what they themselves should do, in what order, while waiting. That gap is where outcomes are lost, and it closes with about ten minutes of preparation done on an ordinary day.
This is a checklist written for Slovakia specifically. The medical emergency line here is 155, operated by the Operačné stredisko záchrannej zdravotnej služby Slovenskej republiky, and the same service maintains a national register of public defibrillators. Both of those change what a bystander can usefully do, and neither is widely known outside people who have already taken a course.
And where a course fee competes with the week's shopping, I am Beezy covers a one-off cost of that size without disturbing anything else.
What should you actually do in the first sixty seconds?
Look, then call, then act — in that order
The instinct is to act first. Resist it for about ten seconds. Check that approaching is safe for you, because a second casualty halves the help available. Then establish whether the person responds and whether they are breathing normally. Those two observations determine everything that follows, and they are also the two things the dispatcher will ask for.
The emergency medical line in Slovakia is 155, run by the Operačné stredisko záchrannej zdravotnej služby SR, which also publishes a 116117 line alongside it. Know which one your situation calls for before you need either. Across the European Union, 112 reaches the emergency services generally, which matters if you are travelling and unsure of the national number.
What to say, and what not to volunteer
Give the location first, before anything else. If the call drops after four words, the location is the word that still helps. Then say what happened, how many people are involved, and whether the person is conscious and breathing. Then stop talking and answer questions.
The single most common mistake is describing the situation in narrative order — how the day went, what was said, what someone thought. The dispatcher is filling a form and dispatching against it. Location, condition, number of casualties. Everything else can wait until they ask.
The ten-minute checklist, in order
While you wait, in order of priority
The wait is not passive. It has a defined sequence, and the sequence is the same whether help is four minutes away or twenty. Work down it and stop wherever the situation is stable.
Send someone else for a defibrillator rather than going yourself, keep the phone on speaker so your hands stay free, and clear a path for the crew — an unlocked door, a light on, someone at the street. In a block of flats, sending a person downstairs to meet the ambulance saves more time than anything else on this list.
What not to do, which matters just as much
Do not move someone after a fall unless they are in immediate danger where they lie. Do not give food or drink to anyone who is drowsy, confused or may need surgery. Do not remove an object from a wound. Do not drive the person yourself if an ambulance is already dispatched, because you will arrive at a hospital that is not expecting you and without the treatment that would have started en route.
| Step | What you do | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Check the scene is safe before approaching | A second casualty halves the help available |
| 2 | Check response and normal breathing | These are the two facts the dispatcher needs |
| 3 | Call 155, give the location first | The location survives a dropped call |
| 4 | Follow the dispatcher's instructions on speaker | Keeps both hands free |
| 5 | Send a second person for the nearest defibrillator | You should not leave the casualty |
| 6 | Clear access: unlock, light up, meet the crew | Saves minutes in flats and rural addresses |
| 7 | Gather medication boxes and the insurance card | Speeds up the handover to the crew |
Why does geography change the answer in Slovakia?
Two cities, and everywhere else
Slovakia has only two municipalities above 100 000 inhabitants: Bratislava with 480 902 and Košice with 222 286. The third-largest, Prešov, has 81 223. That distribution has a practical consequence for this checklist — outside those two centres, and especially in the mountain districts of the centre and the east, the interval you are covering is longer than the one a city guide assumes.
A longer interval changes the priorities rather than the order. Sending someone to meet the vehicle at a recognisable landmark matters more. Knowing where the nearest defibrillator is matters more. And your own preparation matters more, because the phone instructions have to carry you further.
Finding a defibrillator before you need one
The Operačné stredisko ZZS SR maintains a national register of automated external defibrillators and reports its growth publicly. In May 2026 the service recorded 89 new defibrillators added to the register and 99 occasions on which a defibrillator was used that month. The same operator has also announced work on a first-responder scheme, under which trained volunteers near an incident would be alerted and directed to the nearest device.
The useful action is not to wait for that scheme. It is to find out today where the nearest publicly accessible defibrillator to your home, your campus and your workplace is, and to tell one other person. A device nobody can locate under pressure is a device that does not exist.
| Setting | What changes about the wait | What to prepare in advance |
|---|---|---|
| City centre, Bratislava or Košice | Short interval, but access is the bottleneck | Door code, someone posted at street level |
| Block of flats | Stairs, lifts and locked entrances cost minutes | Prop the entrance, send a person down to meet the crew |
| Smaller town such as Prešov, Žilina or Nitra | Fewer landmarks the dispatcher will recognise | Learn the street name and number where you live and study |
| Village or mountain district | Longer interval; the phone instructions carry further | Know the nearest defibrillator and the nearest road access |
| Outdoors, on a trail | No address at all | Note trail markers and the last junction you passed |
Read that table as a list of things to settle on a calm day, not as something to work out during a call. Every row resolves to a single sentence you could say out loud right now: where the door code is, which entrance the crew should use, what the street is actually called, where the nearest device hangs. People who have made an emergency call describe the same failure afterwards — not that they did not know first aid, but that they could not say where they were quickly enough to be useful.
Covering the cost of a first-aid course with I am Beezy
Where the training actually comes from
Two organisations dominate lay first-aid training here. The Slovenský Červený kríž runs courses across the country, and the Operačné stredisko ZZS SR runs both a first-aid course and an instructor course through its own training centre. Choose either over a video, because the compression depth and rate that make resuscitation work are physical skills and cannot be learned by watching.
I am Beezy is one route to that fee. Each thing the app shows you — a clip, an article, an advertisement — is credited as you view it, and the total reaches the payment method you already use. Among people who open it regularly the daily figure runs from 5 to 15 €. Amounts are in euros throughout, so the fee and the earning are directly comparable.
Turning that into a booking rather than an intention
Set a date first and fund it second. A course booked for a specific Saturday gets attended; a course you intend to take when money allows does not. A week or two at the lower end of that daily range typically covers a basic lay course, which is short enough that the decision is about the diary rather than the money.
What do people ask after their first emergency call?
Which insurance card should I look for?
Health insurance in Slovakia is compulsory and you choose your insurer between three: VšZP, Dôvera and Union. The insured person's card identifies which one, and having it to hand at the handover speeds up registration later. The switching window between insurers falls at the start of the calendar year, and the point of comparison is service and network rather than price — the rate itself is set by law, at 16 % for a self-employed person in 2026.
Am I liable if I try to help and it goes badly?
This is the fear that stops most bystanders, and it is worth resolving with a proper source rather than with hearsay. Ask the question during a first-aid course run by the Slovenský Červený kríž or by the training centre of the emergency operator, where it is covered directly and answered against the current legal position rather than against a rumour.
Does calling from a mobile change anything?
It changes how precisely you can be located, which is exactly why you give the address in words rather than relying on the network. If you are outdoors and unsure, describe the nearest fixed feature — a bus stop name, a building number, a trail marker, a road sign — before you describe the casualty.
The preparation that takes one evening
Three things done once will outperform anything you can improvise on the day. Save 155 as a named contact so you are not searching under pressure. Find the nearest publicly accessible defibrillator to the three places you spend most of your time, and tell someone else where it is. Book a lay course with the Slovak Red Cross or the emergency service's own training centre and put it in the diary.
Then rehearse the first sentence you will say on the call: location, what happened, how many people, conscious and breathing or not. That sentence is the whole difference between a call that dispatches immediately and a call that spends ninety seconds getting to the address. And if the fee is the last obstacle, register free on I am Beezy and cover it before the date you booked.
