The alarm jolted me from sleep, well after midnight, as is usually the case with such deployments: “Analgesia, solo, palliative patient”. In our small town, one can navigate the streets safely at night even without lights and sirens, so only the rhythmic flashing of the blue light illuminated the sleeping houses during our approach. I wondered why the emergency medical service (EMS) dispatch center does not simply dispatch the physician-staffed EMS unit to approach without lights and sirens in this case. Later, in conversation with the relatives, it turned out that they had previously called the General Practitioner’s service line, but it had felt unable to appear in person and had offered to send an ambulance for transport to the hospital. The relatives had declined this. Even without knowledge of the local situation, the two illuminated windows in the pitch-dark night showed us the way to the apartment; we were expected.