Owensboro-Daviess County Central Dispatch is tasked each day with helping members of the community through life-altering situations. To help ensure every resident can receive help equally, the dispatch center spends roughly $200 a month on translator services for non-fluent English speakers.
Paul Nave, director of the ODC Central Dispatch, said they utilize different avenues to help communicate and learn about the situation as quickly as possible.
“What’s very important to understand is when there’s an emergency, people will always revert back to the native language because it’s an instinct that is comfortable,” Nave said.
Through Language Learning and Telelanguage, dispatchers have a third person on the line to help translate all communication that comes in from the client.
Together, both agencies cover 150 different languages.
If a client isn’t able to make a phone call, there is also a text hotline available. Each text from the client to the ODC Dispatch Center will be translated from the client’s language to English, and the reply will be translated back.
Nave said in 2021 alone, the dispatch center communicated almost 2,500 minutes in a myriad of non-English languages.
They predominantly saw Spanish, Rohingya (a language native to Myanmar) and Somali (a language in eastern Africa).
While the response process is slowed down just a bit to ensure proper translation, Nave said that it is not a large time difference.
“We take it very seriously because I don’t care where you’re from or what language because emergencies don’t care,” Nave said. “An emergency is an emergency, and if you’re traveling through here or you live here my job is to get you help.”
While the translator is usually on the phone for the dispatch interaction, he said that if a responder needs a translator for any instance, they can provide one.
And while Nave said translators are helpful, he would love to have people on staff equipped to speak other languages as well.
In the meantime, they will continue to use the systems in place to give proper service to the community.
