An 8-year-old resident of Bowling Green, Kentucky successfully handled an EMS call in English while translating from Arabic for his mother.

We’ve often pointed out in this blog that children are not well-suited to the task of medical interpretation.

But emergencies are emergencies, and sometimes children from LEP (limited English proficiency) families have to act quickly – and manage to succeed at it.

The story of Ali Deen is a case in point, and a heart-warming one at that. The 8-year-old Iraqi immigrant stayed cool, calm and collected as he translated back and forth from Arabic to English after his mother took a bad fall at home a few months ago.

The youngster will be receiving an award from Emergency Medical Services at his school on Thursday.

“’We don’t have a lot of child callers and the fact that he took the initiative and was able to translate and let us know what was going on was amazing to me,’” explains Tiffany Merten, who took the call, in an article from The Bowling Green Daily.

The incident also underscores how quickly children can pick up a new language. When Ali arrived in the USA, he spoke Arabic only, but at the ripe old age of 8, he is already speaking and writing English with no problem.

His teachers are impressed with his linguistic progress, but Ali takes a matter-of-fact view of the episode: “’My mom fell down, and we called the doctor…And it’s OK.’”

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
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