Emergency numbers and help in Austria

The numbers

• 112 reaches an operator who speaks English and will route you. If you remember one number, remember this one.
• 140 is the one people do not know. For anything on a mountain, in a gorge or off a trail, call 140 rather than 144.
• The Alpine distress signal is six signals a minute, whistle or torch, repeated after a minute's pause.
• The SOS-EU-ALP app sends your exact position to the control centre in Tyrol, Bavaria and South Tyrol, and is worth installing before you hike.

Mountain rescue will cost you

This is the most expensive surprise in Austria, and it hits ordinary hikers, not just climbers.

• Statutory health insurance does not pay for air rescue after a leisure accident. Neither does the EHIC.
• A helicopter lift runs EUR 3,500 to EUR 5,000. The Alpenverein puts the average an injured person actually paid at EUR 4,984 for a typical 40-minute flight - a flying minute costs well over EUR 100 before anyone treats you.
• Being carried out on foot is the cheap outcome, at EUR 200 to EUR 500.
• A complex rescue, with search time or technical terrain, reaches EUR 5,000 to EUR 10,000 or more.
• You can be billed for being ill-equipped. Austrian rescuers have publicly charged groups who set out for the mountains in the wrong gear.
• Cover costs almost nothing by comparison. An Alpine club membership or a mountain rescue add-on to your travel policy is EUR 30 to EUR 80 a year and covers the callout.
• Buy it before you go up, not after the weather turns.

If something goes wrong

• Theft: report it at a police station and get the written report. Insurers will not pay without it.
• Lost passport: contact your embassy in Vienna. Most countries have one, and an emergency travel document takes a day or two.
• Card lost or stolen: freeze it in your banking app first, then call your bank.
• Road accident with injury: you must call the police, 133 or 112, and stay at the scene.
• The European emergency number works without a SIM and from a locked phone.