“Emergency Call” return with Bärbel Schäfer: presenter shares traumatic experience

From April 22nd and every weekday at 6 p.m., Sat.1 will bring back the former RTL format “Notruf”, which was last broadcast almost 20 years ago. Bärbel Schäfer (60) also returns to television for the new edition and hosts the show, in which, as in the original, dramatic operations by rescue workers are re-enacted. In an interview with the magazine “Gala”, the 60-year-old spoke about her motivation for leading the format – and talked about what was probably the most traumatic moment of her life.

She wants to use the show to give due honor to those people who are in action every day and save lives – “for me they are real heroes.” At the same time, she knows only too well how upsetting it can be to have to dial the emergency number with your heart pounding wildly. She once had to do this for a neighbor in need.

In 2013 everything changed

Even in the worst moment of her life, she had to deal with the emergency services: “Unfortunately, I met emergency doctors in connection with the accidental death of my brother.” In 2013, her brother Martin, aged just 46, died in an accident on the motorway. The moment when Schäfer found out about the stroke of fate is burned into her memory: “It was a traffic report, and at night the police with a psychologist showed up at my door and rang me out of bed.”

Since then, every time she sees paramedics on duty on the highway and senses “how these professionals are fighting for someone’s life,” she has to think about the tragedy in 2013.

“The pain doesn’t go away, it stays.” She is reminded of this again and again in everyday situations: “I not only lost my brother, but also my professional partner, my roommate, my best friend.”