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What Happens When Callers To 9-1-1 Speak No English?

Dispatch supervisor Brenda Faxon and director Mark Buchholz in the Willamette Valley 9-1-1 Communications Center in Salem, Ore. (Tom Banse/Northwest News Network)
Dispatch supervisor Brenda Faxon and director Mark Buchholz in the Willamette Valley 9-1-1 Communications Center in Salem, Ore. (Tom Banse/Northwest News Network)

In an emergency, the last thing you want to hear is, “I can’t understand you.” The reality is emergency dispatchers in most of the U.S. speak one language, English.

But in our increasingly polyglot society, some people in distress inevitably can’t communicate in English.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Tom Banse of Northwest News Network takes us inside a 9-1-1 call center to find out what happens then.

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