A dizzy spell at 9:40 pm, two firefighters in the living room: the label behind the door tells them how to speak to Rayan before touching him
Two firefighters walk into a living room, the beacon of the ambulance still sweeping the walls, and an autistic adult does not answer, hands pressed over his ears. A label stuck behind the door says the essentials before the first word: speak softly, one person talking, announce every move.
This case is about an autistic adult of 31, very sensitive to noise and touch, who lives alone. The profile is created by him and is meant for the emergency teams called to his home for a dizzy spell.
The moment as it happens
A Thursday, 9:40 pm. Rayan stood up from the couch too fast, the room spun, and he ended up sitting on the floor against the coffee table. The neighbor upstairs heard the thud and called 18 (the French fire and rescue emergency number). When the ambulance pulls up, the blue beacon sweeps across the shutters and the whole apartment flashes.
Two firefighters come up. The crew leader knocks hard, the radio crackles on his belt, his colleague puts down the assessment bag and leans toward Rayan's shoulder. Rayan curls up, presses his hands over his ears, and answers nothing. He could be taken for confused, angry, drunk.
The crew leader spots the label behind the door and scans it. Three lines. He switches off the radio, turns off his headlamp, keeps his colleague a meter back and speaks alone, softly, with closed questions. Rayan raises a thumb. The assessment can begin, and it will go all the way through.
- You write it
- The QR is in place
- The reader scans
- Understood, without explaining again
Where to place the QR for this case
Emergency teams arrive in numbers, in the noise, and look at the room before they look at the person. The QR must be where a firefighter looks when walking in, not in a wallet someone has to go and find.
- Label behind the front door, at eye level, on the apartment side: it is the first wall responders see when they close the door behind them.
- Magnetic card on the fridge, where many households already keep information useful to an emergency team.
- Phone case or pouch, for the times Rayan is outside, on a platform or in a shop, and street crews are the ones who arrive.
- Link given to the neighbor or a relative who calls 18, so they can read it out to the dispatcher.
Leave out the mailbox, the hallway drawer and the notebook on a shelf: in an emergency, nobody opens them. One rule matters, the QR must be visible without searching.
Ready-made text templates
These templates are a starting point to fill in the three sections of the profile. Rewrite them in your own words: you know better than anyone what helps you hold on when everything moves fast. They should be readable in ten seconds, on a phone screen.
For the "Introduction" section
"My name is Rayan, I'm 31, I'm autistic. I understand what people say to me, but with noise, light and several people around, I shut down: I stop answering and put my hands over my ears. It is neither refusal nor confusion. I live alone."
For the "How to help" section
"Speak softly, one person at a time. Turn off the beacons and lower the radios if you can. Ask closed questions, I answer with a gesture: thumb up for yes, flat hand for no. Tell me what you are going to do before you touch me, and start with the forearm."
For the "What to avoid" section
"Please don't grab my shoulder or arm without warning. Please don't talk several at once or ask me to look you in the eyes. Please don't conclude I'm drunk or aggressive if I don't answer. Please don't repeat louder."
Conditions covered by this case
The linked profiles are autism and sensory hypersensitivity. The same guidance also helps a person in acute anxiety, with selective mutism or deafness: little noise, one speaker, announced gestures.
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