Hello, emergency

By Sahar El-Bahr

photo:Randa Shaath

The task of emergency teams may also include other services. Wadie explains that the force tours the capital's streets and reports back to base on various problems: dark streets where criminals could be lurking, large potholes, open manholes... All these could lead to accidents.

Long experience has taught Raouf Fouad, the supervisor of the emergency room, that each season and each area has its own accidents. Downtown, most emergencies are car accidents. In upmarket areas, houses are robbed, or cars stolen. He claims quarrels and murders increase in working-class areas, especially in the summer.

Hot weather means more work for the emergency force. Fouad says that in summer, the teams check the weather forecast every morning. "Every single degree centigrade higher means 30 more fights than on average," he explains. "In winter," strangely, "there are more fights in front of preparatory and secondary girls' schools. Robberies increase in summer, since people leave their windows open."

The emergency forces in Egypt were created after the 1952 Revolution. Times have changed, and the nature of the calls has changed too. "Nowadays, with the increase in the city's population, morning emergency calls are mainly about problems with utilities like water or electricity, and complaints about noise at night," Fouad notes.

All the woes of Cairo's 16 million inhabitants are transmitted down the 30 lines staffed by emergency operators 24 hours a day. The 120 emergency cars and 300 policemen working in the department are always on call.

Many people think that 122 only receives calls when tragedy strikes, but actually, many complaints are made about more mundane "disasters". The force receives, on average, "only one murder report a month," maintains Fouad.

According to the statistics compiled by the Cairo Emergency Authority, last October alone the authority received about 12,000 emergency calls. More than 3,500 involved problems with water, electricity or sewage. "This means that 30 per cent have to do with services. Another 3,000 calls were complaints about noise. The rest of the calls are for security and human services," said Major General Wadie.

Seven specially trained policemen sit in front of telephones in the emergency room to receive complaints. Behind each telephone call, a story lies. Not all are tragic.

A first complaint is received by officer Yasser Qassem Mohamed. A man is complaining that peddlers have taken over the street where he lives in Bab Al-Sha'riya, turning it into a marketplace, and vaunting the merits of their wares at the top of their voices. After writing down the information in the daily logbook, Mohamed remarks that complaints about noise have increased drastically in the last three years. Peak days are Sundays and Fridays, when people celebrate weddings, either at home or in the street. Complaints come in thick and fast during exam season.

Those who complain about noise are usually reluctant to give information about themselves, as they are complaining about their neighbours. "Sometimes, they may have been congratulating the bride a few moments before. Then they go back home and call emergency," says Mohamed.

For the emergency team, it is important to get the name and the telephone number of the person filing the complaint, so that the squad car can reach the right address.

Wadie adds that some parts of Cairo are especially difficult to navigate, so complaints must be accompanied by full directions. Often, callers are panicking and cannot provide an address, leading to problems for policemen trying to negotiate their way through informal settlements, where there are no streets, let alone street signs and house numbers.

The second complaint of the day is a common one: a water shortage in Old Cairo. Mohamed explains that when water is cut off, every inhabitant of the area dials 122 to complain, keeping the line busy most of the day. This, he maintains, is due to confusion and laziness; instead of calling the authorities responsible for public services, people find it easier to call emergency.

Next comes a call from an irate man, complaining that his neighbour has illegally broken down a wall shared by their apartments. Mohamed explains that this complaint should have been made to the police station, not the emergency team.

The stories are mundane and funny, weird and wonderful, terrible and tragic. A caller reports that a teacher has fainted in the classroom; a butcher calls in a panic from a hospital, explaining that he had agreed to donate a kidney to a university professor's son, but that he wants to back down now. An engineer reports the theft of valuable equipment from his company. Three students have fallen into a manhole near a Helwan school; the caller explains that they have been pulled out, but it is unclear whether more students are still inside. Another teacher calls, screaming that a mob armed with knives and chains wants to beat up the school staff.

Fouad remembers a woman who called to report that the plumbing in her house had collapsed. "Why didn't she call a plumber?" he wonders. Another woman called to say her husband left her with no money. Some calls are farcical: once, Mohamed says, a man called 122 to ask for help; the owner of the house he was robbing had caught him and beat him black and blue.

Many reports do turn out to be, if not jokes, at least mild exaggerations. "Whenever there is a scuffle," notes Mohamed, "people always call to say that guns, iron chains and sulphuric acid are involved. So two or three emergency cars and an ambulance are dispatched. When we get there, we find the people who were fighting have made up and gone home." Citizens often expect the squad will solve all their problems: more than once, mothers have phoned in requesting that a member of the force wake them up at night so they can give medicine to their children; students call in requesting morning wake-up calls or a ride to exams. Sometimes travellers forget their plane tickets and ask emergency to bring them to the airport.

But the team does help out in life-or-death incidents, coordinating its activities with those of hospitals, for instance. Squad cars tour the city's medical centres if a doctor has called in complaining that a certain type of blood is in short supply and a patient is awaiting a transfusion; force members have also been sent out to find medicine or physicians.

Now, with the recent introduction of answering machines, Wadie hopes the emergency team will be better equipped to receive calls about potential terrorist activities from citizens who would be too afraid to call in person. "There are seven lines for Cairo," he explains, "and already we are receiving 20 to 30 calls a day."