An 11-year-old boy is being praised by paramedics for acting as an interpreter after he and many others were injured in an Arizona bus crash.  The bus was traveling through Arizona on its way from Zacatecas, Mexico to Los Angeles, California, so many of the passengers spoke Spanish but did not speak English as well as this boy, Óscar Rodriguez.  This young boy’s bravery is certainly commendable – he made a big difference when the paramedics turned out to have not been prepared with professional interpreting help.

Read articles by the AP, Fox (video), and ABC.

Hopefully the paramedics and those who equip the paramedics will realize that there is a better way.  It doesn’t take much for a paramedic to access a medical phone interpreter via a mobile speaker phone.  Child interpreters will not always be able to help the paramedics, and it is best to avoid the many risks in using child interpreters.  Those risks include the psychological and emotional distress inflicted on the child interpreter and potential  errors in interpretation due to a child’s poor understanding of medical terminology.