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I mean, that's fair. Man's gotta have his alone time.

Exactly. Getting lost is a treat :-)

A Finnish coutryside fried got his hand clipped by a lathe. I'll spare the details but there were serious cuts and he lost parts of a finger. He made sure to tell me, in no uncertain terms, it was his girlfriend that insisted calling an ambulance, rather than it being his desire.

Dad was a woodcraft teacher. One day while preparing for lessons he nearly severed his thumb with a table saw. So the taped it down with duct tape, taught the rest of the day, and only then went to see a doctor. They had to graft new tendons and do several skin grafts to make it work again.

lol lol… very finnish. after my experience with the finnish medical system I got the impression one needs lose 6 litres of blood before one is worthy of going to the hospital :D

I remember seniors with heart problems telling us they had since yesterday but they wouldn’t like to call during the night

@jmkorhonen.fi This comedy came to mind, where a man gets trapped under an overturned tractor and calls his neighbor Veikko instead of the fire department. He says, “Come over whenever you can.” https://youtu.be/aNgX21aSmok

Years ago (IIRC) Washington Post ran a story about Finnish mentality. One observation has lived rent free in my head since: the American reporter theorized that Finns seemed sometimes a bit reluctant to help strangers - b/c that would’ve suggested the stranger couldn’t survive on their own. Maybe!

Note however that the police chief in charge of search effort emphasizes that people shouldn’t be afraid to call for help if they get lost or otherwise need assistance.

That said, I have to admit I too would probably be extremely embarrassed and at least if I were alone, I’d prefer to spend the night in the woods too.

I think it's more like, people don't want to accept help because a) they don't want to admit they can't make it alone and b) that would mean they'd be indebted to someone else. Being indebted is awful in all sorts of ways, selfish and not selfish. What will people think if you can't pay it back?

I will say that any time I have had to *ask* for help in Finland, people here have always been *incredibly* happy to do so. And when family members have been in a situation where they couldn't/clearly needed assistance*, people were right there to give it.

Yeah - very helpful if you ask in my experience too, but as an introvert myself if I gave into Finnish shame I'd be completely sunk. by contrast, we were once "abducted" by a Dublin airport worker who saw us with a small kid and started vigorously pushing our trolley toward the bus

(The second one was a hit and run on a pedestrian path--family member was, thankfully, not grievously wounded. Another pedestrian saw it happen, and ran over to both help, make sure family member stopped trying to stand up, and called emergency services.)

”Ei tartte minua varten keitellä” vietynä vähän pidemmälle.

I know a man, around 75 years old, who broke his leg walking in the woods a couple of kilometers from home. Somehow he managed to get home so his wife could drive him to the hospital. When I askd him why he didn't call for help, he said "how would I even explain where I am?". Fair enough.

Nowadays, anyone in Finland 🇫🇮 with a smartphone really should install the free “112” app: it features a big call button and transmits GPS coordinates with the call, so emergency services will know where the caller is.

idk if Finland does it, but just calling them alone will generally transmit your gps location through a side channel if you have a smartphone. (this is on top of other options they have like utilizing cell tower data to at least limit the search)

My car broke down on the motorway the other winter. It didn't start. The temperature was dropping. I had two options: Wait for a tow truck in a deep snow bank by the moose fencing or sit in the car and potentially die in a car crash - There was not enough room to pull up on the side of the road.

People stopped and offered help. I declined politely. I told them that help was on its way. It just took time because it was a public holiday. One of the passers by called the police. The police came to rescue me because they suspected I had hypothermia. I don't know. Too much adrenaline.

I sat in the backseat of the police car where you can't leave. You have to ask them to let you out when they're done questioning you and they figure that the situation is safe again. I was warm and thought I was fine. Let's not make fuss...