In an emergency situation, it's important to get life-saving information out to the people. Deaf residents of Manatee County, Florida may not have received this message clearly, as a man with limited sign language skills was put in front of the camera to translate a televised briefing about Hurricane Irma.
To show just how embarrassingly bad the translation really was, YouTuber Jane Smith added captions to the briefing.
As an example, "We need you to be safe," became "Need be bear monster" to this under-qualified interpreter.
One YouTube commenter defended the man, writing:
ma'am he was not impersonating an interpreter. I personally know him and he is not an interpreter nor does he claim to be. His brother is Deaf. He works for the county as marine rescue. THE county are the ones who are to blame not this man. For the record his superiors asked him to, and he told them that he was not an interpreter and did not want to, but he was coerced into doing it anyways. Yes, it was a serious mistake, but please direct your outrage appropriately and don't just make assumptions about someone's motives without knowing anything about them please…
Poor guy, he really gave it his best shot.
