ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. —
Moments after a woman was shot, a frantic 911 call to help her was lost in translation.
It took a 911 dispatcher nearly three minutes to send a rescue crew to the scene where a woman was shot inside her food truck in East Orange County.
A Spanish-speaking witness tried to get help for Mireya Alvarado, who later died from her injuries.
Even though the county has a translating service for 911 operators, it was not used.
Investigators said two men armed with a gun barged into the food truck on East Colonial Drive around 2:30 a.m. in an apparent robbery attempt.
A struggle ensued between a male food truck employee and the suspects. Officials said at some point during the confrontation, the gun went off and shot 65-year-old Alvarado in the chest.
She was rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Alvarado’s friend ran in the rain, holding his phone, and desperately looking for a translator.
When Renee Martinez called 911, he said asked for an ambulance in Spanish.
He said the word “Spanish” before asking for help.
Community activists said at that moment, the 911 operator should have recognized the word ambulance or contacted the county’s translating service.
But she didn’t, and instead, she waited for Martinez to find someone who spoke English.
Almost two minutes into the call, he did.
Martinez is heard asking passersby, “Excuse, you Spanish? English? Telephone please!”
“This guy just ran up and said someone got shot in the food truck,” said another man to the operator.
During that time, Alvarado lay bleeding in her food truck.
“A part of me was bleeding there because that’s part of my community,” activist Trini Quiroz said.
The sheriff’s office faced questions about the dispatcher’s actions.
“They’re trying to get as much information as they can as quickly as the can,” said Angelo Nieves of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
“But at that point, should she have stopped trying to get information and transferred him immediately?” WFTV reporter Nancy Alvarez asked.
“That is part of the information under review,” Nieves said.
WFTV was told that 74 emergency operators are in Orange County. Only 12 speak Spanish and there was no Spanish speaker on duty the night Alvarado died.
Activists said that’s unacceptable in a county where almost 30 percent of residents are Hispanic.
“We need to have a Spanish-speaking person and supplemental training for people who do not speak Spanish on every single shift,” said resident Michael Aviles.
WFTV found out the translating service assisted with about 11,000 emergency calls last year, but even when it’s used it can still take up to two minutes to connect with the service.
On Wednesday, Sheriff Jerry Demings promised the incident will have a thorough review.
