I took basic and intermediate sign languages courses in college and really wish I had kept it up. I've had only a handful of calls where I could have used it (
here's one I was on from a fellow fire bloggers site) but when you need it you need it.
On this particular occasion we were called out for a possible DOA. I was met outside the house by a woman who immediately told me that she was deaf and waved for me to follow her in. Inside I found our patient deceased in a recliner in the living room. She was very much dead but still warm and had no rigor which means I would have to work her up anyway unless there was paperwork to support a request for no resuscitative efforts. I put the ekg leads on her (asystole) and my captain wrote a note to the woman who'd met me at the door asking about advanced directives. The woman ran off and returned with paperwork stating exactly what I needed to know: no cpr, no machines, etc. This woman was not family but had power of attorney and the paperwork was all in good order (you don't know how important that is, really I can't stress this enough). While she was retrieving the paperwork a man came out of the bedroom and I turned to him to ask him a question and he smiled and gave me the universal "I'm deaf" sign of pointing to his ear and shaking his head.
Neither the man nor the woman seemed overly distraught and were really very pleasant to us. Turns out they were husband and wife and the dead woman was a friend who lived with them (who also happened to be 90 years old). We cancelled the ambulance and called for PD. I think it must have been shift change or something because it took a long time to get an officer out there. In the meantime we conversed the best we could and passed the notepad back and forth when we couldn't understand each other, basically letting the couple know what would happen, answering questions, and really just chatting. We were asked about our families, how many kids, etc. I remembered enough to sign the number of kids I had as well as their genders and ages which earned me a little applause from the woman. We found out where they were from and where their daughter lived. Despite the dead woman on the floor and the barriers to communication it was really very nice. I wish I knew more sign language just so I could have talked more with this lovely couple.
