I came home from work and went to walk the dog. On my way back, there was a man sitting on my bench. He said, "Can I ask you a favor?".
Then he handed me his mobile phone and asked me to call an ambulance. Suspiciously, I replied, "Can’t you do it yourself?", because he looked perfectly ordinary and not particularly ill, and I’ve grown suspicious lately. The man replied, "I feel really bad, I can’t, my wife went to the pharmacy to get some Corvalol".
If this had happened in Moscow or St. Petersburg, I probably would have hesitated some more, because I’ve been frightened by all sorts of horror stories about scammers. But here, I grabbed the phone, trying to remember what number to call. I dialed 112 (I think they introduced it here two years ago), asked for an ambulance, was put through, explained what was happening, then explained it again because the connection was bad. His wife arrived and asked me to stay there because she was scared. I stayed for a little while; the ambulance arrived almost immediately. He seemed to feel better, but they took him in just in case.
Just
2006-09-22