Editor in chief at IamExpat Media
There are many reasons why you might want to get in touch with the police in Germany - perhaps to report a burglary, make a noise complaint, or something more serious - but for one woman who dialled the 110 emergency number last week, the problem was nothing more than a creepy crawly in her car.
The call was received by the police dispatch centre in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg last week. As Bild reports, the woman said she urgently needed help and couldn’t continue driving because she thought there was a large spider in her car.
The dispatcher duly sent out a police car. Officials searched the car for the creepy crawly but were unable to find anything. “Obviously that was enough to calm the woman down,” a spokesperson told Bild, and so the woman was able to continue her journey.
It appears the woman suffered from an extreme spider phobia - a severe pathological fear that can cause symptoms like perspiration, heart palpitations and tension.
This is by no means the first time an eight-legged creature has resulted in a call to the emergency services in Germany. In 2016 a woman in Heidelberg enlisted the help of the police when she was too scared to enter her own apartment after spotting a spider in the bathroom. In Hesse in 2019 officers responded to a call about a supposed giant spider that measured 20 centimetres across - but it turned out to just be a rubber octopus toy.