Most of us think an “emergency” announces itself. Tyres screeching. People yelling. Dramatic background music, preferably. But some of the scariest calls that reach 1122 start quietly. They sound like ordinary days that decided to go wrong in slow motion.
The child who “just had a bad infection”
In Badin, a little child with measles was getting worse. High fever, breathing fast, not as responsive as before. Nobody saw a crash or a fall; they just saw a child who “wasn’t settling.”
Indus Hospital DHQ called for an emergency transfer to NICH Karachi. Inside the ambulance, it wasn’t “just a transfer” anymore. The crew and doctor intubated the child, started ventilator support, and spent the highway hours suctioning, adjusting settings, and watching every number on the monitor like a countdown.
By the time they reached Karachi, the child was still on the ventilator but alive and responsive enough to cry on the hospital bed. From the outside, it was just another Hope ambulance on the road. Inside, a silent emergency had been dragged back from the edge.
The chest pain that could have been “gas”
One October afternoon in North Karachi, a 35-year-old woman had chest pain and shortness of breath. The kind most of us explain away: maybe stress, maybe acidity, thora sa rest kar lo.
Her family called 1122 instead of Google. By the time the unit from NK station reached Sector 7-A, the pain was severe. The team treated it like what it might be, not what everyone hoped it was. Vitals, medication, oxygen, the full cardiac protocol on a narrow staircase and in a small lounge.
Minutes later, the pain began to ease, her breathing settled, and she was well enough to be safely shifted. No viral video, no “breaking news,” just a woman who went from critical to stable because somebody decided her pain was worth the siren.
“Just shift the patient, please”
On another night, Dow Hospital needed to move a patient in acute respiratory failure to an ICU in Hyderabad. The request sounded simple on paper: inter-facility transfer. In reality, the patient was fully ventilator-dependent, with a chest that had forgotten how to breathe for itself.
The Ancholi 05 team loaded not just a stretcher, but an entire mini-ICU into the ambulance: ventilator support initiated, airway secured, vitals watched the whole way, constant updates with the receiving ICU. The patient reached Jeejal Maa Hospital Hyderabad, still stable, still on the machine that had been quietly doing the work of their lungs.
To anyone overtaking that ambulance on the highway, it was just another flashing light. For the family, it was the thin line between “we lost them on the way” and “they’re in ICU now; keep praying.”
What silent emergencies really are
These three calls don’t look the same, but they have a common pattern: nothing explodes on screen. No glass shatters. Nobody screams “EMERGENCY” in capital letters. Silent emergencies are the ones we almost talk ourselves out of.
The child who is “just a bit different today.”The chest pain that’s “probably gas.”The ventilated patient who “just” needs transferring.
The body rarely goes from fine to catastrophic in one second. It whispers, then mutters, then starts raising its voice. We usually wait for the shouting. And it’s not only the body. Minds do this, too. Relationships do this, too. A father who hasn’t really smiled in months but says he’s “tired.” A son who jokes about being “mentally finished” a little too often. A family that lives together but only talks in logistics: bills, groceries, passwords.
No monitor beeps when someone is one argument away from breaking down. No dispatch code for, “He says he’s okay, but he hasn’t been himself in a year.” Those are silent emergencies as well — they just end in different kinds of ICU: addiction, self-harm, shut-down marriages, children who grow up thinking numb is normal.
Answering the calls, we can’t hear
1122 is there for the moments when your gut says, “Something is not right,” even if the street outside is calm. The service exists so that chest pain, strange breathing, sudden confusion, or a “routine” transfer don’t get a chance to turn into tragedies on the way.
For the emergencies inside the mind and home, there is another number quietly waiting in the background. If this reminds you of your own home — someone’s breathing doesn’t feel right, a pain won’t settle, or the mood in the house has been heavy for too long — you don’t have to guess your way through it. To talk to a doctor about your physical health or get counselling and support for your mental health and relationships, you can use Tele-Tabeeb 1123 for free online consultation. Whether it’s a tight chest, a stubborn fever, a panic that won’t switch off, or a family tension you’re tired of carrying alone, reaching out early is what turns a silent emergency into a problem that can still be treated.
Not every emergency will scream for you. Some will look like an ordinary evening, an ordinary highway, an ordinary joke. Recognising those silent emergencies — and acting on them in time — is how ordinary people quietly become the reason someone is still here.
