Almost nobody decides badly in an emergency because they lack courage. They decide badly because the decisions arrive in the wrong order, all at once, in a house where nothing has been agreed in advance. Which number. What to say. Whether to move the person. Whether to unlock the door. Who goes down to the road.
All of those can be settled on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, and they take about half an hour. Preparing for an emergency in Norway also means accounting for the country itself — 5 633 770 people at the end of the first quarter of 2026 according to Statistisk sentralbyrå, spread across distances that change what the first ten minutes are actually for.
Some of what follows costs a little money: a course, a card on the fridge, a spare charger by the bed. If that is the reason it keeps getting postponed, an application like I am Beezy turns evening screen time into a small balance, and a few evenings of it covers the whole list without touching the household budget.
Which number do you call, and what changes between them?
Norway separates the acute from the merely urgent, and the separation is worth learning before you need it. Helsenorge, the national public health portal, puts it in one sentence: "Ring 113 om situasjonen er kritisk, og det står om liv og helse." Consulted 16 August 2026.
113 — the medical emergency number
This is the number for an accident or a serious incident where emergency medical assistance is needed. It is toll free. You do not need to be certain; the person answering is trained to sort that out, and being wrong about a genuine worry costs nothing. Hesitating because you are not sure it counts is the failure mode that actually harms people, not the false alarm.
116 117 — the out-of-hours service
Every municipality in Norway runs a legevakt, and 116 117 connects you to the one covering where you are. Helsenorge describes the number as toll free and reachable around the clock, for use when your GP is unavailable and you are unable to wait. That is the number for the evening where something is clearly wrong but clearly not life-threatening — and using it correctly keeps 113 free for the calls that are.
The three signs Helsenorge tells you not to wait on
The same official page names specific symptoms that warrant a 113 call: chest pains lasting more than five minutes, unconsciousness or reduced consciousness, and onset of facial paralysis. Those three are worth reading aloud to whoever you live with, because they are the ones people talk themselves out of. A face that has dropped on one side is not something to observe for an hour to see whether it improves.
The checklist for the minutes before help arrives
Four blocks, in order. The order is the point: each one is easier if the previous one is done.
Make the call, then stay on the line
Call first, explain second. Give the address before the symptoms — an address is what dispatches a vehicle, a description is what refines it afterwards. Then do not hang up. The person on the other end will keep asking questions and giving instructions, and those instructions are the reason the call continues.
Open the route
Unlock the front door. Turn on the outside light, whatever the hour. If there is a stairwell code, a locked gate or a lift that needs a key, say so on the phone. If there is a second person in the house, send them to the road: someone standing where a vehicle can see them saves more minutes than any other single action, and in winter darkness it saves a great many.
Keep the right things within reach
A charged phone, the list of medicines actually being taken, and the door key. Not a folder of records — a single sheet with medicines, doses, known allergies and any pacemaker or implant. Write it now, put it on the fridge, photograph it and keep the photo on both your phones. It is the one document you will not be able to compose while frightened.
What to do while you wait
Follow what you are told on the phone, and do not move the person unless you are instructed to. If someone is unconscious and not breathing normally, the dispatcher will talk you through resuscitation — this is why the line stays open. Everything else can wait for the crew.
Decide now who else gets told
The fourth block is the one people skip, and it is the one that matters most for anyone living alone. Agree with a neighbour, an adult child or a caretaker that they hold a key and that they are the person called second. Write their name and number on the same sheet as the medicines. Two things follow from that arrangement: someone can open a door you cannot reach, and someone can answer the questions you will not be in a state to answer. If you live alone and there is nobody nearby you would call, say so at your next appointment with your GP — the municipality is the level at which those arrangements exist, and it is a conversation worth having before an incident rather than after one.
| Situation | Number | First thing you do | First thing you say |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chest pain lasting more than five minutes | 113 | Call while the person sits down | Address, then "chest pain, more than five minutes" |
| Unconscious or reduced consciousness | 113 | Call, put the phone on speaker, stay beside them | Address, then whether they are breathing |
| One side of the face has dropped | 113 | Call, note the time it started | Address, then the time you first noticed |
| Clearly ill, GP closed, not critical | 116 117 | Call and describe the symptoms | Where you are and what changed today |
What is different when it happens at the hytta or in the north?
Two Norwegian situations break the assumptions a checklist written for a city makes. Both are common enough to prepare for.
An address the dispatcher can use
A hytta frequently has no street address of the kind that appears on a delivery label. Settle the question on a calm day: agree how you would describe the position, note the details on the same sheet as the medicines, and decide who walks down to the road when a vehicle is on its way. Doing that once is worth more than any amount of improvisation later.
Distance changes what the first ten minutes are for
In a dense part of Oslo, the minutes before arrival are mostly about not making things worse. Further out — and Tromsø, with 80 114 inhabitants at the first quarter of 2026, is the largest town in the Norwegian Arctic, not a small place by any measure — those same minutes are more likely to be the treatment. That is the honest argument for a real course rather than an article. Norges Røde Kors and Norsk Luftambulanse both run first-aid training in Norway, and a few hours of it changes what you are able to do in exactly those minutes.
The defibrillator register
Norway maintains a national register of defibrillators at hjertestarterregister.113.no, referenced by Helsenorge itself. It lets you find the nearest device and register one you own. Look up your own street, your workplace and your hytta area now, while nothing is happening — a device three hundred metres away is only useful to someone who already knows it is there.
| Where you are | What is harder | What to prepare in advance |
|---|---|---|
| Flat in a town | Stairwell codes, locked entrances, lifts | Codes written down; someone at the door |
| House with a drive | Being found in darkness or snow | Outside light on; someone at the road |
| Hytta | No usable street address | An agreed description of the position, written down |
| Far from a hospital | The wait itself | A real first-aid course; the defibrillator register checked |
Paying for the preparedness kit with I am Beezy
Nothing on this list is expensive, and that is exactly why it stays undone: it never becomes urgent enough to spend on. Detaching it from the household budget is often what finally gets it bought.
What the kit actually consists of
A first-aid course for two people, a plainly written card by the telephone, a spare charging cable kept permanently by the bed, and a torch that works. That is the whole thing. It is a modest sum, once.
How the earnings cover it
The mechanism takes one line to describe: content is put in front of you — videos, articles, advertisements — and every view you complete adds to a balance that goes out to your usual payment method. Five to fifteen euros a day is the reference figure across I am Beezy, and at the European Central Bank rate of 10,9750 kroner to the euro published on 7 August 2026 that lands somewhere near 55 to 165 kroner. That conversion is not stable — the Norwegian krone floats — so look up the day's rate before relying on the kroner side of it. A few evenings covers the card, the torch and the cable; a couple of weeks covers the course as well, and there is nothing to buy first.
Questions people ask after the first false alarm
Was I wrong to call 113?
Calling on a genuine worry is what the number is for. The judgement about severity belongs to the person who answers, and they make it faster with you on the line than you can make it alone in a hallway. The call you regret is the one you delayed.
Should I drive them myself instead?
Not on any of the three signs listed above. Driving removes you from the phone, removes the person from trained help, and puts you behind a wheel in a state where you should not be. Call, and say where you are.
Does the same checklist work for a visitor who does not speak Norwegian?
The numbers are the same and the sequence is the same. What changes is the address: a guest who does not know where they are cannot give one, so write the full address of the house and of the hytta on the sheet, in printed letters, and point at it. A visiting grandchild who can read out a street name is doing the single most useful thing available to them.
What if the person refuses help?
It happens constantly, and it is worth deciding in advance how you will respond, because the argument is not one you will win by improvising. Say plainly that you are calling 116 117 to ask, and let a professional voice do the persuading. That is a legitimate use of the number.
Half an hour on a quiet afternoon
Write the sheet. Put 113 and 116 117 somewhere visible rather than somewhere clever. Agree who opens the door and who goes to the road. Look up the nearest defibrillator on the register. Book the course. None of it takes an afternoon, and all of it is only useful if it is done before the day it is needed. If the small costs are what have been holding it up, I am Beezy is a free sign-up and pays for the list a few evenings at a time.
