Last Sunday my motorcycle broke down, and stranded, I was forced to call Emergency Roadside Assistance. For a minute, I had thought to ask for help from another pedestrian in the area, but that time, I decided to try to do it on my own. Throughout my life as a Deaf individual I had always had phone fear- when the phone rang, I froze; thoughts tormented me like "What if I don't understand what they're saying, what do I do?", "I won't recognize the voice", "What if he/she speaks too quickly?", "I don't want to make a fool out of myself!"
So there I was in an emergency situation and I kicked all of those negative thoughts straight to the curb. I mustered up some courage and dialed the number. I was ready to make that emergency call by myself: to ask the person on the other line to please speak more slowly without becoming agitated. And as you are speaking on the phone, you realize that-
... They ask you what happened...
...They ask you for your name and surname...
...They ask you for the license plate number of the motorcycle...
... They ask you the warranty number...
... And they inform you that the pick-up truck will arrive in 45 minutes...
From then on, without having foreseen the outcome of that call, you understand that you have just done something enormous...something that up until a couple of years ago would have been impossible for you. These are the incredible satisfactions in life, and they must be appreciated for all of the hard work and effort, physically and psychologically that contributed to finally achieving them!!!
I would like to preface that before becoming confident with my cell phone, I had to wait at least 3 years after my ci surgery, and it required a great amount of willpower and motivation to find the courage to respond to and make telephone calls.
One step at a time....making a phone call in an emergency situation...who would have ever thought I'd overcome that obstacle!!!
Eng. Nicola Battista
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