Fire Department non response.

[scouser2]

Yesterday, our neighbours in the next complex to us had a fire on the terrace of the apartment below them (which was empty).As my wife went to yell them to get out of their apartment I attempted to call the fire brigade. I dialled 110 and gave the address, and said imdat.I explained that I speak little Turkish (in Turkish)and said there was a fire. The man on the end of the phone appeared to not speak English.
By this time my wife had ran down stairs to our Turkish neighbour for help. He went outside with our hosepipe and put the fire out.It took about 20 mins.But for our Turkish neighbour, the damage could have been catastrophic.
I am concerned that there appears to be no English speaking people answering the phone on emergency numbers.No-one from the fire Dept came out in response to my call.

[mercury]

Funnily enough there were firemen at the opposite block of apartments yesterday evening. They came within 10 mins of calling but maybe because they are Turksih speakers.

[Highlander]

Whilst fully sympathising with you for what must have been a harrowing experience and sharing your concern regarding the non attendance of the fire department, is it realistic to expect the emergency number to be answered by someone who speaks English.

There must be a number of foreign nationals living in Turkey, German Dutch and Russian for example and it would surely not be practical for the answering service to cater for all the different languages.

After all, a Turkish national living in the UK would not be able to speak to someone who spoke Turkish if he or she dialled 999.

[Steve (redding43)]

Completely agree

quote:Originally posted by Highlander

Whilst fully sympathising with you for what must have been a harrowing experience and sharing your concern regarding the non attendance of the fire department, is it realistic to expect the emergency number to be answered by someone who speaks English.

There must be a number of foreign nationals living in Turkey, German Dutch and Russian for example and it would surely not be practical for the answering service to cater for all the different languages.

After all, a Turkish national living in the UK would not be able to speak to someone who spoke Turkish if he or she dialled 999.

[KKOB]

And I agree with Highlander too.

[Toky]

It just highlights our arrogance as a race, to expect every other nation to be able to speak English. When in Rome ......etc
 

[Highlander]

To be fair to scouser2, he did, in a stressful situation, try and use Turkish.

It was the concern about there being no-one who spoke English that I found surprising.

[Julesp]

I never expect people to speak english in these situations, if you are not fluent in turkish the easiest thing to do is to phone a turk friend and get him or her to phone for you, not many more seconds lost than if you are trying to explain in Turkish that you dont know too well or when they dont understand any English

[Highlander]

Useful advice Jules .

[bewva]

Our 999 operators would need to understand about 100 different languages with the way we open our borders up.