A British woman who got stuck in the toilet room; a father whose son refuses to wash his hair – these are just some of the reports that Polish emergency services receive over the holiday period.

Gazeta Wyborcza writes that several days ago the emergency services 112 number received a call from a British woman who got stuck in a toilet in a clubs in the southern city of Krakow. Maybe slightly disorientated by refeulling after a long trip, she could not remember the name of the club where the toilet was, so the operator checked the area where the call was made from and sent several city guards to local clubs to search each of the toilets where the distressed Brit was calling from.

In another incident, operators also took a call from a panicked husband, who reported that his wife’s arm had got stuck in a shower drain when she tried to reach for her wedding ring that slipped off her finger while taking a shower. “Firemen had to dismantle the whole shower base to free the woman’s arm,” said Filip Czyz from the Fire Services.

Unusual calls or mock reports on the 112 emergency number happen all year round but during summer holiday they are more frequent.

Emergency call operators learn how to distinguish mockery from dangerous or even life-threatening cases. If they receive a call that a car was stolen from a shopping centre, they first advise the owner to check all parking levels because people usually forget where they parked their car.

One day, an operator was surprised when an elderly woman called emergency services and asked how much flour she is supposed to scatter on the floor. “Burglars regularly break into my flat so my neighbour advised to scatter flour at the front door. A burglar will leave shoe prints and it will be easier for policemen to detect him,” explained the woman.

Other unusual cases included a helpless father who complained that his son does not want to wash his hair, or a woman who complained that her dog had become sick and sought advice.

A man whose duck was stolen also reported it to police.

 Policemen, firemen and city guards complain that they waste time by taking up trivial cases while they could focus on more serious ones. It is sometimes really difficult, however, to verify whether the danger is real, or not.

“We received a call from a witness who said that two men who said they were trying to commit suicide by jumping from a skyscraper. When we arrived at the site it turned out that the men were satellite dish fitters,” says Marek Aniol, city guard from Krakow. (mg/pg)