For quite some time now I’ve known the emergency number in Korea is 119, and I’d tucked it in my head as the Korean parallel to 911 in the U.S. I’d never had occasion to test this knowledge, however, until today.
From time to time I hear yelling and thuds coming from somewhere above my apartment. Up until now I’d assumed it could be anything, ranging from hearty furniture revamping to heated discussion. I can’t make out the words, and I don’t know Korean anyway, so really, who am I to say?
But today the sound of a woman screaming and crying was indisputable, and regardless of the reason why, she was very clearly distraught. The voice of a man yelling—more loudly and more intensely than I’ve heard before—was also indisputable. The thudding I kept hearing could have been from furniture or someone stomping on the floor, but considering the other factors I didn’t think that was a safe assumption anymore.
A lot of thoughts ran through my head. I don’t know if domestic violence is a concern in Korea. I don’t know if it’s something the police would handle or if there is another number I should call. I don’t know if I could communicate well anyway. I don’t know how to explain that I don’t know if it’s violence or that I don’t know exactly where the noise is coming from. I don’t know if just suspicion counts as an emergency enough to tie up 119.
But in the end, I realized that it would be a pretty big deal for me, morally, to suspect that something bad was going down and walk away. It’s one thing if there’s no reason to suspect anything. It’s another if I’m totally oblivious to begin with. But if I really think that something like that’s going on, and I don’t do anything about it, is that really okay? Should that really be a choice that I could live with?
So I called.
And I found out something useful! 119 is actually the number that you call when you need an ambulance sent out. If you only want to reach the cops, the emergency number for police in South Korea is 112.
The police came and talked with me, and checked the apartment above mine, but as I suspect is often the case with these things, they didn’t find much going on because it had died down by the time they arrived. (The yelling, screaming, and crying went on for what I think must have been a good 20 minutes before they came, though.) They left and told me I should call again if I hear anything again.
I still don’t know what number you would call if you needed firefighters to come save you, but, fortunately, I haven’t needed to know that one yet.
