EMERGENCY Vocabulary in English

Hi, there. I'm Ronnie. I'm going to teach you something very important today, as I always

do, about life. What to do in an emergency situation? These can be very serious. A lot

of people say, "Don't panic." Well, guess what? If my house is on fire, I'm going to

panic. But the thing to do is to remain calm. I'm not going to be calm. I'm going to panic.

And the very first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to pick up my phone. And because

I live in Canada -- even if I lived in America -- I would dial 911. 911 will direct you to

the emergency operator. If you are living in Britain or in the UK, the code is 999.

If you live in Australia and you're on a home phone or a landline, the number is 000. And

strangely enough, if you have a cell phone or a mobile phone in Australia, you're going

to do 112. You're going to dial 112. In New Zealand, the code is different. New Zealand

is 111. Apparently, if you call 000 in New Zealand, it tells you, "Please hang up and

dial 111" while your house is burning down. "We are sorry." I hope you don't die. So these

numbers are really important for you to remember depending on where you live.

I'm sure that your country, maybe, has an emergency call number depending on what country

you live in. I obviously don't know all the countries' code numbers, but it's going to

be probably a three-digit number, and it's probably something that's hopefully easy to

remember. So as I said, when you call these numbers, you're going to get an operator. And the operator

is going to say, "Fire, ambulance, or police?" What's "ambulance"? "Fire" we all know. "Fire"

is when your house is burning down, and you're running for your life. If you say "fire",

you're going to be directed to the fire department, and they're going to roll out the firetruck.

A "firetruck" is a huge, usually red or brightly-colored truck that has a siren that goes "woo". I

can't do the siren. Every country's emergency vehicles have different sirens. It's very

important as well, when you're driving that if you hear a siren, you must stop and pull

over to the side of the road. If you -- oh, they're coming. I hear them now. If you do

not pull over and stop, you will get a ticket because -- they're going to stop their fire

truck and give you a ticket. No, they're not. It's illegal. It means when you hear a siren

and you're driving, you must pull your car over so the emergency vehicle can get through.

So the firetruck is the big, beautiful, red truck that all the children love. And in the

firetrucks, there are what we call "firefighters" or a firefighter. Predominantly, I would wager

a guess that 90 percent of firefighters are men. The reason being, apparently, is that

women -- no. Let's rephrase that. You have to be strong enough to be able to lift up

a person, put them on your back, and run with them. Obviously, women can do this and are

strong enough, but it seems to be a male-dominated occupation. So most of the time, we would

see "firemen" or plural -- sorry. "Fireman" in the singular or plural "firemen". Easier,

you can just say "firefighters".

The next one is if you have an accident -- let's say that you hurt yourself. You broke some

bones. Or someone is having a heart attack. Maybe you saw a car accident. Maybe you're

in a car accident. Please don't be in a car accident. If you're able, you can dial 911,

and you would ask for the ambulance. Some people would call an ambulance "emergency

car", but the proper name is "ambulance". When you call an ambulance, it will take you

to the hospital. And they'll take you to the emergency or the urgent care department. If

you are not in an ambulance, you can still go to these departments, but if you arrive

in an ambulance, you will be the first person seen in the hospital. As a side note, if you

call an ambulance and it is not an emergency -- like, you broke your nail or something

-- you will be charged a lot of money if it is a false alarm or if you do not really need

an ambulance.

The last one is "police". So the operator will say, "Fire, ambulance, or police?" Police

are supposed to help you if you witness a crime or you're involved in a crime. For example,

if someone is trying to rob you or you see a robbery, someone is -- god forbid -- getting

murdered or if you're witness to a murderer. Any general help that you need, the police

should help you if you call 911. The generic name is a "police officer". This is used just

like "firefighter" is used for men and women. Or you could have a "policeman" or a "policewoman".

Obviously, this is the man, and this is the woman. And in slang, we can also call police

officers a "cop" or "cops". There's even a TV show called "Cops" where they go around

and arrest people. Have you seen that? It's really wonderful entertainment.

I hope that you never have to use these. But I hope that you learned a lot from the lesson.

Please try and look at what country you're in and what the emergency code is and understand

"fire", "ambulance", and "police".

[Siren blaring]