How will help reach you?

The Emergency Response Centre is your first line of help in a situation where you need help from the ambulance, police or rescue, need help or wish to give information. Your 112 call will be answered by a call-taker of the Emergency Response Centre; senior specialists answer calls at the help and information phone lines.

Your emergency call shall be answered in Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu or Jõhvi, regardless of where you are calling from. The call will be answered by the first available rescue coordinator.

The rescue coordinator will first determine WHAT HAS HAPPENED and WHERE, i.e. the need for assistance and the location of the event, and will then enter that information to the information system. The rescue coordinator will set a risk assessment for the event, taking into account the condition of the person in need of assistance, the danger level of the event and other relevant circumstances. The risk assessment is based on guidelines provided by the Rescue Board, the Police and Border Guard Board and the Health Board.

To ensure that the person in need of assistance receives help as soon as possible, several employees of the Emergency Response Centre work on one event simultaneously. While the rescue coordinator who answered the call is still gathering additional information on the event, a logistician of the Emergency Response Centre will, if necessary, send out an ambulance and rescue workers. If the help of the police is also needed, they will be dispatched by a police duty officer of the Police and Border Guard Board at the work hall. As of April 2018, employees of the Rescue and Coordination Centre were also moved to the work hall of the Northern Centre and their help is used, if necessary, by the police during events in transboundary water bodies of Estonia.

We have set time criteria for events that need rapid intervention. If it is determined that a person’s life is in danger, the primary necessary information has to be gathered within 60 seconds and the dispatch order has to be forwarded to workers sent to the scene within 30 seconds.

The help and information phone numbers’ service is accessible 24/7. The calls are answered by senior specialists of the Emergency Response Centre, who mediate information in the case of problems that are not time-critical. You can find more information on help and information phone numbers here.