On January 9th, the Dracut Police Department, one of the agencies NMRECC dispatches for, received a call from a concerned citizen, saying that a son had reported that his mother had left and he didn’t know where she was.

After engaging with the son via outbound text from Prepared Live to acquire recent pictures, it was discovered within a few hours that the mother was working in nearby Revere, MA and that she was okay. The mother herself also made statements to explain what had occurred and that it was a misunderstanding.

While something seemed slightly awry, they were able to close the incident the same day as nothing indicated a need for further action. After a few days, however, NMRECC began to receive new messages from the mother that populated in the initial Prepared Live incident.

It turned out that the mother did not speak English, only Spanish, but because NMRECC uses Prepared’s text language translation functionality, the messages translated automatically.

“The minute she started texting, the auto translate came up and worked fantastically. I mean, there was not even a blip in the radar between us speaking to her, asking questions, and whatever else was needed,” says Lessard.

The NMRECC team soon discovered that she was currently part of a support program and that they would need to engage their Frontline Initiative, a program that, according to Lessard, “Helps people who are in transition, people that are dealing with substance abuse issues, or dealing with mental health issues.”

“The minute she started texting, the auto translate came up and worked fantastically. I mean, there was not even a blip in the radar between us speaking to her, asking questions, and whatever else was needed.”

Over the next four days, NMRECC and the woman went back and forth over Prepared Live, empowered by text language translation, to ensure that she was able to travel to and from court, housing, and work. Working in concert with the Frontline Initiative, which is staffed by mental health clinicians that are able to assist officers on-scene, personnel were able to visit with the woman in person to explain how they were going to be able to help her moving forward.

“In the end we assisted her with what she needed, including additional things that only our partners could help her with. The fact that it was translation back and forth was extremely helpful to everybody involved.

“At first it sounded to us like a serious situation with a son concerned about the parent and he could speak English, but she could not. Then once we started reaching out to her, using Prepared, which no other system that we have in our arsenal could allow us to do, this is [the situation] we ended up with…[fortunately] all ended well.

“The fact that it was translation back and forth was extremely helpful to everybody involved.”

“We eventually reunited family members and made sure… that we learn from this [for future similar situations],” Lessard concluded.

The above is an excerpt from a Prepared 911 post featuring NMRECC. For the full post and more information about Prepared 911 view the full post.