#SEDGWICK COUNTY TAG OFFICE TEXT LINE HOW TO#

Hispanic and Latino people make up nearly 15% of Sedgwick County residents, or more than 75,000 people. Wichita’s most used languagesĭata from Sedgwick County’s emergency communications office show the languages most commonly used by callers other than English were Spanish, Vietnamese, Lao and Arabic. Emergency responders will be sent to the location of the call even if no information can be provided. If you call 911 and do not know these, do not worry.

#SEDGWICK COUNTY TAG OFFICE TEXT LINE HOW TO#

Learn how to say “I speak _” and “I live at _” in English, filling in the language you are most familiar with and your home address. “Being able to literally have that translation of what the crisis is, and (to) be able to provide that information to whoever is responding with the accurate information in a timely manner,” she said, “is life and death.” Long calls and wait times make it harder. Silva-Renteria said it’s already hard to get refugees to call 911 because many come from places where they saw government as a threat rather than a form of rescue. “Oftentimes, when these people are calling 911 it’s because they … really are in an emergency,” she said. She’s been a consultant to the county looking for solutions. Yeni Silva-Renteria, executive director of the International Rescue Committee office in Wichita, regularly hears about long wait times from the refugees she works with. Sheena Schmutz, Sedgwick County’s chief human resources officer, said that the issue has not been raised since those early budget meetings. Roughly one in 14 people in Wichita say they speak English less than “very well.”ĭiscussion of increasing pay for bilingual employees to boost recruitment stalled earlier this year. The average wait time for those placed on hold is five seconds, according to the television station report. However, these services come with flaws, and like many industries now - including Sedgwick County’s emergency services - the language lines face staff shortages.Ī report earlier this year by KWCH found that about half of calls to 911 in Sedgwick County are not immediately answered by a person, due to staffing shortages. “I can only imagine being (a refugee or immigrant) in a country where I did not speak the language and how frazzled I would be in general,” Forshee said, “let alone while I am experiencing this traumatic event.” Thirty seconds is a long time, she said, when someone’s not breathing, when a heart has stopped, when paramedics are needed at a car accident or a person is bleeding from a gunshot wound. “But sometimes it can take 20 or 30 seconds for us to find a translator, especially when it’s late at night or the language is uncommon.” “Five seconds is our connection goal,” said Elora Forshee, director of emergency communications in Sedgwick County. Connecting a call to somebody who speaks something other than English can add 20 to 30 seconds. The Sedgwick County emergency response system relies on third-party translation services to handle foreign language calls. If you don’t speak English, be ready to wait. Be prepared to give your address, the nature of your emergency and - your language to the 911 dispatchers.

Sedgwick county tag office text line