Koch, 83, said firefighters and Emergency Medical Service workers showed up at his home Monday night after Life Alert was unable to reach him, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday.

"The machine that calls you is in the living room and I couldn't hear it because the door to my bedroom is closed because of the air conditioning," said Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 until 1989.

Koch said Life Alert was able to get in touch with him shortly before the emergency responders arrived, but they insisted on coming up to his apartment despite the doorman's assurances that the alert was a mistake.

"They said, 'We gotta check it.' So they came upstairs and they saw me in the flesh, literally," Koch said. "I thanked them and they went back to the station."

"To the consternation of my enemies, I'm still alive," the former mayor joked.