You Heard Mali? I Said Somalia

A language barrier resulted in a misunderstanding that prompted the Rochester Fire Department and other emergency responders to implement their new Ebola response protocol on Sunday.

The firefighters were sent to a southeast Rochester apartment in response to a medical call about a woman sick with flu-like symptoms and put on bio-hazard suits after a dispatcher mistakenly heard the patient had recently traveled to Mali, which is dealing with an Ebola outbreak. The caller had actually said the woman was from Somalia, and it had been many years since she had traveled to her homeland.