When describing emergency situations, you often need to explain why something happened or how a rescue was performed. German uses specialized prepositions that take the genitive case to express these exact concepts clearly.
Consequences with "infolge"
The preposition infolge translates to "as a result of" or "due to." It tells you the cause or consequence of an event. Because it is a genitive preposition, the noun phrase that follows it takes genitive articles (des, der) and endings (like -s or -es for masculine and neuter nouns).
| As a result of the accident, the man has a severe injury. | Infolge des Unfalls hat der Mann eine schwere Verletzung. |
| As a result of the heart attack, the woman immediately needs the help of the doctors. | Infolge des Herzinfarkts braucht die Frau sofort die Hilfe der Ärzte. |
Means and Methods with "mithilfe"
To explain how something is accomplished or what tools are used to help someone, use the preposition mithilfe (with the help of). Just like infolge, it always requires the genitive case.
| With the help of the defibrillator, the emergency doctor stabilizes the heart. | Mithilfe des Defibrillators stabilisiert der Notarzt das Herz. |
| With the help of the stretcher, the passersby bring the woman to the ambulance. | Mithilfe der Trage bringen die Passanten die Frau zum Krankenwagen. |
Flexible Placement
Like most prepositional phrases in German, phrases with infolge and mithilfe can move around the sentence depending on what you want to emphasize.
If you place the prepositional phrase at the very beginning of the sentence to highlight the cause or method, the conjugated verb must stay in the second position, pushing the subject to the third spot.
| As a result of the heart attack, the passersby start with the resuscitation. | Infolge des Herzinfarkts fangen die Passanten mit der Wiederbelebung an. |
If you start with the subject instead, the verb stays in the second position, and the prepositional phrase simply sits later in the sentence.
| The resuscitation works with the help of the defibrillator. | Die Wiederbelebung funktioniert mithilfe des Defibrillators. |
| The passersby rescue the dog with the help of a ladder. | Die Passanten retten den Hund mithilfe einer Leiter. |