Butler Co. dispatch center optimizes service to bridge language barriers
While calling 9-1-1, people expect someone to answer and be ready to help, but what happens when the dispatcher can’t communicate due to a language barrier?
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The Butler County Sheriff’s Office dispatch center doesn’t have that issue, our media partners in Cincinnati, WCPO-9 reported.
The center has a button that each of the 34 dispatchers can push to dial a remote interpreter who can speak with the caller to ensure help is quickly on its way, the station said.
“I would recommend it. I think the amount that it helps and saves people versus the cost of it is minimal,” Dispatch Manager Miranda Sheppard.
The center uses a service called LanguageLine Solutions, where interpreters fluent in 240 languages are on call 24/7.
It costs the center around $600 a month, but it will typically depend on the number of calls and the length of each call.
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The service has been used for more than a decade in Butler County, and there has never been a month where it wasn’t needed, the station said.
Last month, the center used the service on about 80 calls.
“We have a lot larger of a population that does not speak English within the area, more than people would think, and they need help just as much as anybody else so you have to have that resource to be able to help them,” Sheppard said.
Recently, the service came in handy as a man dialed last week asking for help after his friend went underwater at Four Mile Creek in Hamilton, the station said.
The caller could only speak Spanish and the dispatcher quickly pulled up the translation line, pressed one for Spanish, and quickly connected the translator.
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The translator helped the dispatcher understand the location of the emergency, the age of the victim, and what he was wearing, the station said.
“I actually spoke with the dispatcher that took the call that day the day after and I was just like, ‘Crazy how quickly it connected,’” Sheppard said. “We spoke about it and he was like, ‘I just know I push 1.’”
Butler County has a large Spanish-speaking population and Sheppard said her dispatchers are frequently dialing in a Spanish interpreter, but other languages do come up.
“We’ve had French,” said Sheppard. “We did have one in particular that was a little difficult for us. It was Nepali. “It took a little bit to get to the right translator because even them on their end weren’t sure what language it was.”
