Road Trouble’s a Pain --in Any Language

A busload of tourists from the former Yugoslavia were traveling on the Santa Ana Freeway when trouble arose.

They pulled over to a call box and told the 911 dispatcher their problem--in Serbo-Croatian. When that conversation went nowhere, the tourists hung up, then stopped at seven more call boxes, only to hang up in frustration each time.

By the eighth call, the dispatcher was ready for them. An interpreter was on the line and quickly got to the root of the problem: The tourists had gotten lost on their way to Disneyland.

Tens of thousands of times a year in Orange County, fire, police and California Highway Patrol dispatchers need translators--fast--for languages ranging from Gujarati, Wolof or Amharic to Tagalog or Ilocano.

Until two months ago, dispatchers around the state relied on AT&T;’s Language Line, which offers translators for more than 140 languages but costs up to $4.50 per minute. But in June, the state signed a contract with Omni Network Multilingual Communications, which provides interpreters in 70 languages. And the cost to law enforcement agencies is nothing.

For cities like Anaheim, where dispatchers handle about 10,000 emergency calls per month, the need is especially great.

“With us having that tourist influx each day, we have to provide many more languages, because we have just about everybody coming in from around the world,” said Shelly McKerren, communications manager for the Anaheim Police Department.

Although Spanish and Vietnamese are the most common foreign languages spoken in the state, 911 operators say language needs run the gamut. There was, for example, the sheepherder from the Basque region of Spain who called the CHP and pleaded in his native language for help finding his lost dog on the Santa Ana Freeway.

And sometimes, the callers only sound as if they’re talking a foreign language.

Like the woman from Lubbock, Texas, whose accent was so thick that a dispatcher couldn’t understand her.

“We had a shift supervisor who’s from Texas get on the line, and she couldn’t understand her either,” recalled Annette Kart, senior vice president of Omni.

Another problem is that, like Ricky Ricardo, people in a tizzy tend to revert to their native languages.

“Usually even people who can speak English very well need to express themselves in their native language in a panic situation,” Kart said. “Our duty is to be here 24 hours a day to provide a timely service, and that’s very challenging.”

Interpreters, said AT&T; spokesman Chris Ensign, must be able to think in two languages simultaneously.

“The requirement is that [interpretation] occur very rapidly,” Ensign said. “You don’t have time to sit and analyze what was said. You have to instantly use the cognitive process and move between the two languages. Your grasp of vocabulary, syntax and grammar has to be immediate.”

AT&T; started its translation service in 1989 “primarily because this country has so many urban areas with people who speak different languages ranging from Filipino . . . to Mandarin to French,” said AT&T; spokesman Burke Stinson. “What a nightmare it would be to be in a foreign city and coming down with appendicitis or be a victim of a mugging or some other emergency situation and trying to get your message across to authorities who only speak the native language. You can’t have people in unnecessary risk because of the language barrier.”

The services are especially important to the Orange County Fire Authority, whose dispatchers answer about 5,000 calls a year from people who don’t speak English, said Capt. Scott Brown.

“This is all time-driven, and when you add the dynamic of a language barrier, you can see the important role that language translation plays,” Brown said.

For one little boy last week, the role a translator played in his life is something he may never forget.

Anaheim police dispatcher Traci Sturms took the call. The Spanish-speaking boy’s sister had been hit by a car.

“I didn’t know what he was saying, because my Spanish is limited and he was really upset,” Sturms said. “Whatever [the interpreter] was saying was working in getting him calmed down.”