Emergency information in Czechia
112 works from any phone and its operators speak English. The direct lines are faster: 155 for an ambulance, 158 for the state police, 150 for fire and rescue.
Emergency numbers
All of these are free from any phone on any network, including a phone with no SIM or no credit. Operators on 112 speak English and German.
| Service | Number |
|---|---|
| Single European emergency number | 112 |
| Ambulance | 155 |
| Police of the Czech Republic | 158 |
| Municipal police | 156 |
| Fire and rescue service | 150 |
For 24/7 pharmacies and the Prague hospitals with a foreigners' department, see the Health section.
Záchranka: the app the dispatchers actually receive
Czech ambulance and mountain rescue services run their own free app. Its emergency button sends your exact position to the dispatch centre and then dials 155 - or 1210 with the mountain module.
- Install Záchranka on arrival. It is the app the Czech emergency medical service and the Mountain Rescue Service receive alerts from, not a private product.
- The emergency button does two things: it sends a message with your exact location and your profile details straight to the ambulance dispatch centre, then offers to dial 155.
- Without a data connection it falls back to an encrypted SMS, which matters in the places where you are most likely to need it.
- In the mountains use the Mountain Rescue module: it messages Horská služba with your position and dials the 1210 mountain rescue line.
- It is free, the interface is in English as well as Czech, and its locator also works in Slovakia, Hungary and Austria.
Why an app rather than a phone call
The hard part of a Czech emergency call as a visitor is not the language - 112 is answered in English and German - it is saying where you are. A trailhead, a forest track or a village square is exactly the kind of place where a location is impossible to give and decisive to have.
Záchranka is the official app of the Czech emergency medical service and the Mountain Rescue Service, and it closes that gap:
| You press | It sends | It then dials |
|---|---|---|
| 155 Ambulance | Exact location and your stored profile to the EMS dispatch centre | 155 |
| 112 Firefighters | - | 112 |
| Mountain Rescue | Exact location to Horská služba members | 1210 |
If the data connection fails, the message goes as an encrypted SMS instead, so a single bar of signal is enough.
Set it up before you need it
The profile is worth filling in - name, chronic conditions, medication, blood group - because it travels with the alert and a dispatcher reads it before anyone arrives. The app also carries avalanche forecasts, an electronic tour book for mountain walks, and a locator for the nearest emergency department and open pharmacy.
In the mountains, 1210 is a different service from 155. Horská služba covers the marked terrain of Krkonoše, Jeseníky and the other ranges; sending an ambulance up a ridge instead is how an hour disappears.
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