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medical emergencies in french


Lassie
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Last night I suffered a severe allergic reaction which was very frightening.  As I could hardly breathe, it was my husband who phoned SAMU and although his French isnt bad, he found it difficult to describe symptons over the phone because of his own stress at my condition. Luckily the ambulance soon arrived and I was taken to a hospital about 15 kilometres away. A good shot of adrenalin started putting things right. The 'Urgences' was calm, quiet and extremely clean with several doctors and nurses on duty.  Although it was late on a Saturday night, there were no drunks fighting the staff !  My point is to advise anyone whose French is poor to be sure to have the emergency numbers by the phone, your own phone number ( its astonishing how the brain shuts down in a panic) and your address, spelled phonetically if someone's French is poor and you live in an unpronouncable village. At night put all the house lights on to help the ambulance locate you. In the circumstances we were fortunate in having enough language skills to call for help and describe the circumstances of this, and a previous allergic reaction, so that the problem is now identified.  It could have been disastrous and I do worry about all the people on this forum coming here expecting that emergency staff will automatically speak English.  Aint so.

 

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