Lucy Wang

A call for a female with difficulty breathing. When we first arrived on scene, the woman was clearly in distress: eyebrows furrowed, eyes wide with fear while urgently gasping for air. Her panicked nurse hovered close by, speaking rapidly in Mandarin, but none of the predominantly white crew could fully understand her. Being a junior member and assigned mostly to assist with transport and vital signs, I only saw the patient from the doorpost at first. She was an elderly Chinese woman and her shortness of breath seemed to be worsening by the minute. In the moments between her motioning hand gestures pointed to her mouth and futile efforts of trying to talk, she saw me and started to point in my direction. Once I crouched beside her and began speaking to her in Chinese, something shifted. Her eyes locked onto mine and I watched her whole body relax, not just emotionally, but physically as well. 

While the patient’s breathing was still abnormal, her breathing slowed and her oxygen levels improved. She reached for my hand and didn’t let go for the entire ride to the hospital. Calls for issues such as difficulty breathing are common and can sometimes blur together, but that moment has stayed with me. I sometimes think about what would have happened that day if there hadn’t been someone who was able to effectively get through to the patient. That call also made me even more aware of how many times ambulance crews, not just in my town, but nationwide, face language barriers that prevent them from effectively communicating with their patients. It’s even more frightening for the patients themselves, who are unable to express their own symptoms in one of the scariest and critical moments in their lives. And while there are policies that prohibit accepting patient refusals when a language barrier is present, that doesn’t help with the main problem: the lack of consistent and accessible language support that allows patients to feel understood an,d most importantly, in control of their care. 

That call also left me thinking about what resources we actually have, and what’s still missing. In that particular case, my ability to speak Chinese bridged a gap, but I know that’s not something most crews can rely on, especially in smaller departments or rural communities; there just aren’t always interpreters available or effective systems in place for real-time translation. We depend a lot on family members, gestures, or even guesswork, which can often lead to misinterpretations and feel like rolling the dice during critical calls. Language shouldn’t be a barrier to care, but it so often is. Many EMS agencies lack the funding or resources to provide comprehensive language tools. Interpreter lines exist, but in the back of a moving ambulance with sirens going off, they may not always be feasible. In places where hospitals are already far apart and transport times are long, not being able to communicate only adds to the fear for both the patient and the provider. I definitely don’t think the answer is expecting EMTs and other healthcare providers to be polyglots, but I do think the system can do better.

Every patient deserves to feel heard, especially in moments of crisis.