Saturday at 03.30: A yellow car drives towards where Stenersgata slips into Brugata.
Three night owls sit inside: Rebecca Bruusgaard-Orning, Ali Said and Arild Olsen.
A long night seems to be coming to an end when they discover that something is not quite as it should be.
Some young men argue and push. Then more people start running. One of them is heading at full speed past the night owl car. He is wearing a white T-shirt. But the back he clings to is blood red.
Groruddalskaren Ali and Arild have ten years behind them as night owls. Together, they have helped everything from slightly too drunk youths to gunshot victims.
Rebecca from Ås is a nurse. She has extensive experience in holding first aid courses, and is passionate about helping those who are really unwell.
Now everyone realizes that they must act. And fast.
– I thought: “He will die if we don’t act now.” He’s bleeding to death,” says Rebecca.
Auto mode
In the next few minutes, a lot happens.
Rebecca shouts out into the night, asks the man to stop, before Arild turns the car around. Ali grabs the first aid kit. They reach the man outside the Queens pub, where Rebecca helps him up so that he lies face down on the ground.
She places her hands on the knife wound and begins to compress.
Many people had lost their composure in such a situation.
But Arild and Ali slip into an auto mode, where one knows what the other is doing without them talking to each other. While Arild calls the police, Ali is shielding the injured and Rebecca from intrusive passers-by.
Ali also gets a police car stopped. They and Arild help to shield before the ambulance arrives. Before that time, the night owls on the scene estimate that Rebecca fought to keep the man alive for around ten minutes straight.
– It is a long time?
The question reveals that Avisa Oslo’s reporter has little experience with first aid. Arild replies:
– It’s a long time, yes. She used all her power.
– Probably saved a human life
Avisa Oslo has asked both Oslo University Hospital (OUS) and the Oslo police to comment on the case. Wictor Furøy, section leader at Sentrum police station, says the following:
– The police have a close collaboration with the Night Owls. They do a formidable job in the evenings and weekends which, especially in spring and summer, are busy for the police. Sober adults out in the cityscape have a good effect, and here the night owls play an important role. At the weekend, the night owls were on the scene and they performed life-saving first aid.
Then he emphasizes:
– The feedback the police received from health personnel at the scene was that they probably saved lives.
– Almost no walkers left
It might have gone differently on the night of Saturday if the Night Owls had not been started 34 years earlier.
“Oslo parents become night owls”, NTB wrote at the time. 350 parents met in front of the Town Hall and took to the streets during what was to be the start of the Night Raven’s history in Norway.
Every weekend, the organization organizes nocturnal walks in Oslo and the rest of the country. Over the years, the number of volunteers has gone up and down.
Stian Lysberg Solum
Karl Martin Jakobsen
Karl Martin Jakobsen
Back in 2011, a much-discussed wave of rapes led to great involvement.
Now the Night Owls are struggling to get enough people in several districts.
The need is particularly great in the city center – where relatively few people live, but a lot happens.
– We have almost no walkers left. And it’s a bit scary, says Natteravnen’s general secretary Lars Norbom to Avisa Oslo.
Interested in becoming a night owl? You can register here.
Invitation to you
The night owls’ motto reads as follows: “We were there when it didn’t happen”.
The idea is that acts of violence and other serious incidents often do not happen where there are safe adults nearby.
And if you are concerned that the center of Oslo should be a safe place, Norbom encourages you to join the walk. Preferably in the city center – where many people’s children and relatives go to at night.
– You can contribute to making Oslo a more pleasant and safer place. We must not end up in a situation where people do not dare to use the city centre, Norbom asserts.
– Crime in the city center has become more serious. How does it affect their recruitment?
– I think some people are probably a bit reserved and think that there is risk involved. Then we are quick to say that we very rarely experience aggression towards us. It is only in a very few cases. We are safe when we are out and about, because we have a clearly defined role. We do not represent any threat and do not intervene in conflicts, explains Norbom.
Fun and pleasant
Being a night owl can be fun and rewarding.
That’s how it was when Avisa Oslo participated in the start of Friday’s rounds in central Oslo. The gratitude was shown when the passing twins Rawan and Hassan Naima uninvited pay tribute to the Natteravnen’s effort on Karl Johan.
And it’s fun when Sjur Mikalsen stops the car for an electric scooter out on a city trip, and then goes into depth about how he relates to this particular group of road users.
– I don’t trust electric scooters on a Friday night. Not at all. Then I’d rather stop and wait until they’ve made up their minds. When the blood alcohol level rises and people throw themselves at the kamikaze craft there… Then they become the purest dive bombers, says Mikalsen.
Inside the night owl car, laughter spreads. Behind sit Erling O. Turtum and Hanne Hansgård.
– Must be the “right people”
Hansgård has been night owl coordinator for Ruseløkka school since autumn 2014.
The experience is that a lot has changed over the past few years. Much of the communication between young people takes place on social media, and large gatherings quickly occur. Then the night owls’ preventive effect is important.
– The young people know who we are. They are confident in us and what we stand for. We are not government officials or authorities, and we must use the relationship of trust we have built over time, says Hansgård to Avisa Oslo.
She is concerned that young girls, who are drunk, alone and out of their mind, should not be approached by the wrong person.
– Then they can exploit that vulnerability. We must be the “right” people and help those who need it, says Hanne Hansgård about the Night Ravens’ role.
– How is it going with everyone we help?
On the night of Saturday, Rebecca, Ali and Arild were undoubtedly the right people.
– One of us cannot manage without the others. A superb team, which works very well, says Rebecca, and fully praises the two assistants from Stovner.
A few hours after the emergency situation arose in Vaterland, coincidence would have it that Avisa Oslo asked Arild what it is really like to save a gunshot victim. As he, Ali and night owl colleague Thomas Evensen did on 17 January 2023.
The answer was that they “took it as a normal wound, that bullet hole there”. Other times it’s a little more difficult. Because the Night Owls do not get any feedback on how the people they help end up doing.
– How is it then?
– Then it can take a couple of days, you also start to think. Did that person do well? How are all the people we help at the emergency room doing?
