First police call

Today was my first morning back from visiting friends in Sweden and the UK (more about that in posts to come). I woke up, went for a run, after that started to make breakfast and roaming around the flat, noting things that had changed in my absence or needed cleaning/buying. I happened to look out of my window and notice a man lying under a bench on the grass in the courtyard outside. He wasn't moving and his jacket was undone.

Considering that it was Saturday morning, the first thought that popped into my head was that he had had a "fun" Friday night and had now been lying out in the cold for at least several hours (it was +7 C, not a very good sleeping temperature). I came down to wake him up and see if he needed any help getting home.

At first the man didn't respond at all when I addressed him. When I had tapped him on the shoulder a couple of times, he finally said something very slurred that sounded more like a moan than anything else. I tried tapping again and asking his name, but got the same response as an answer. Having thus confirmed that my knowledge of drunk german was not sufficient to handle the situation and after consulting a bit with some neighbors I dialled 110 and was connected to a dispatcher.

It took some time and repetitions, but he finally understood what and where was going on and said he'd send out something or someone (I didn't quite catch it, but assumed he meant a police car with at least an officer) to us right away. This "right away" proved to be around 5 minutes, though to me it seemed much longer because I was standing over an unconscious human and could not come up with a productive thing to do. One feeble attempt at lifting him was made, but that failed miserably as he had turned into a bag of bones with no muscules providing support whatsoever.

When the policemen arrived, they turned out to me one tall man and one much shorter woman (I remember wondering who plays the "bad cop" in this team). I explained the situation to them, they tried, this time successfully, to get the man to sit up. In the process it was revealed that he had on him an empty bottle of beer and a half-empty bottle of some 40-proof schnapps. The unlucky fellow had been mixing alcohol.

The officers thanked me for the call and said they needed my assistance no further. I went back home and had breakfast. I then looked out of my window and saw that both the man and the police were gone. Here's to hoping all went well for the poor geezer!