Emergencies and Safety

This is the page you hope never to need but must know cold. Polish emergency language packs grammar into the shortest possible utterances, and two patterns stand out. To summon help you "call for" it — Zadzwoń po pogotowie ("call an ambulance") uses po + accusative, the "to fetch/summon" construction. And the alarm Pali się! ("fire!") is a subjectless reflexive — there is no "it." Learn these, the imperatives, and the number 112, and you can act and be understood in a crisis.

The number you must know: 112

If you remember only one, remember 112 — it connects to a dispatcher who handles every service and can take English.

Crying for help — the frozen genitive

The shout for help is a single word:

Both are frozen genitives. Pomocy! is the genitive of pomoc ("help"), and Ratunku! the genitive of ratunek ("rescue"). Why the genitive? Because the cry is a leftover of (wołam / proszę o) pomocy — historically you "call for help," and the genitive object survived even after the verb dropped away. You do not need to analyse it in the moment; just know that the shout is Pomocy!, not the nominative pomoc.

Summoning services: po + accusative

Here is the construction English speakers most need to internalise. To "call for" emergency services, Polish uses po + accusative, where po carries the sense "to go and fetch / to summon." You are not calling to the ambulance; you are calling for / to bring it.

Notice the accusative endings: feminine policja → policję, karetka → karetkę (the -a becomes -ę); neuter pogotowie stays the same. The verb wezwać ("to summon, to call out") is the more official alternative and takes a plain accusative (no po): wezwać policję, wezwać pogotowie.

The form Zadzwoń (singular informal) versus Dzwońcie / Zadzwońcie (plural, to a group) versus Proszę zadzwonić (formal) lets you match the people around you. In a crowd, the plural Dzwońcie po pogotowie! reaches everyone at once.

"Fire!" — a subjectless verb

The alarm "Fire!" is grammatically remarkable:

There is no subject — no word for "it." Pali się is a subjectless reflexive: palić się "to be burning / to be on fire," used impersonally. Polish is comfortable with sentences that have no grammatical subject at all, and this is the prime example. You do not say to się pali in the alarm; you just shout Pali się!. (You can add what is burning: Pali się dom! "The house is on fire!")

Warnings, lost, and checking on someone

A scatter of high-value one-liners:

Note that Zgubiłem się / Zgubiłam się ("I got lost") is itself reflexive and gender-marked: a man says Zgubiłem się, a woman Zgubiłam się. Potrzebować ("to need") takes the genitive: potrzebuję pomocy ("I need help"), the same genitive form as the cry Pomocy!.

Common Mistakes

The shout is the genitive Pomocy!. The nominative pomoc is the dictionary noun, not the cry.

To call for a service you need po. Without it the sentence has a bare object that the verb dzwonić cannot take in this sense.

English forces a subject ("it is burning"), so learners add to or ono. Polish leaves the slot empty — the alarm is just Pali się!.

Potrzebować always takes the genitive, so "help" is pomocy — the same genitive form as the cry.

Key Takeaways

• Memorise 112 (universal emergency); dzwonić pod numer to dial a number, dzwonić po
  • accusative to summon a service.
• The cry for help is the frozen genitive Pomocy! (also Ratunku!, Na pomoc!) — not the nominative.
• Summon services with po
  • accusative
  : Zadzwoń po pogotowie / policję / straż pożarną! (mind the accusative: policja → policję).
• Pali się! ("Fire!") is a subjectless reflexive — there is no "it."
• Zgubiłem/Zgubiłam się ("I'm lost") is reflexive and gender-marked; potrzebować ("to need") takes the genitive.