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Language Barrier
After a trip to Mexico and talking to the Firefighters over there, or "Bomberos" as they call themselves, I became curious as to know...
How many of you have ever been faced with a language barrier, and how did it affect the incident?
What do you do if you're faced with someone who speaks little to no English in an emergency, who do you call?
Does your department carry those quick reference sheets made specially for EMS and Fire?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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How many of you have ever been faced with a language barrier, and how did it affect the incident?
What do you do if you're faced with someone who speaks little to no English in an emergency, who do you call?
Happens all the time, takes longer to do an assessment and get info, but you do what you can. In many cases someone does speak English, and we will have that person interpret. If there is someone on the crew who can speak the language, guess what they are doing? When we call the hospital we will notify them to have an interpreter ready. We do have some of the quick reference sheets, but don't always need to use them.
The key though is to try and understand what language is being used. We have many here who speak Spanish, so it is a common language and most of us know some phrases. However, we had a call for a man down and he couldn't speak English, nor Spanish, nor German and we tried to calm him as much as possible, use sign language/actions to try and show what we were doing etc. While still trying to talk to him etc, someone just said "You par Ruskie?" and "dah" was the response. Turns out the guy was a Russian immigrant and the hospital was able to contact an interpreter.
For a fire situation, the language barrier isn't much of an issue.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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I have yet to have a "language barrier" that could not be dealt with through the victims kids, relatives, friends or just using sign language. Sick people belong in the hospital and generally speaking, they understand that you are the one who is there to facilitate that. Anything you can do to facilitate a smooth communication is nothing but helpful. This includes understanding basic sign language. Don't count out the folks out there that cannot hear. Your departments or response area demographics dictate what other languages you need to be prepared for.
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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How many of you have ever been faced with a language barrier, and how did it affect the incident?
It can be awkward, but we manage.
What do you do if you're faced with someone who speaks little to no English in an emergency, who do you call?
We'd call dispatch and ask them to organise it :) Hasn't happened to me yet.
Does your department carry those quick reference sheets made specially for EMS and Fire?
No.
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Using the children is about the best - if they're old enough! But what is this Mike? "This includes understanding basic sign language". Simple gesturing and hoping for the best? Not being funny, being the normal curious me...
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Permalink Reply by Vic Silverfish on
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That's how I learned most of my Spanish.
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Post on
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I kind of figured you would all say that you just use children or relatives...But where I'm at we have a couple streets in our jurisdiction that are nothing but Mexicans, and just so happens that NO ONE on Northwest Ambulance speaks anything other than English.
So for about an hour I heard dispatch and the medics calling for an interpreter at 3am until they finally just took her to the hospital guessing that's what she wanted.
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Permalink Reply by DUST on
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My dept. has an education reimbursement program, so I have taken a few semesters of college level Spanish. I have used it several times on scene and while I'm not as fluent as I's like to be, in the end I've been able to get a lot more iinformation than we would have otherwise. Especially helpful on medical runs.
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Permalink Reply by Derek R. on
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I was just about to suggest something similar, Dust.
Why, then Forrest, don't you take it upon yourself to learn the necessary language enough so that you may be able to get basic info and relate basic instructions that pertain to your field of work.
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Plus Forrest the next time your are in old Mexico you might be able to talk to some senoritas instead of just watching me say something to them in Spanish and then them pointing at you and giggling...
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I've taken four years of Spanish in high school, and have a few friends I practice with on a day to day basis. In Mexico I had to translate for my family with the taxi drivers and with waiters and salesmen in the markets in the far out towns where they speak "solomente espanol".
I've wanted to learn the language since I was 6 years old, knowing it would look good on a resume, and would without a doubt help a lot in my area for myself, and for my departments. And also DUST, It does help me get some Senoritas. ;)
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Permalink Reply by Mick Mayers on
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Que?
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