A Fatal Miscommunication

On early Friday morning, June 15, 2012, Mai Vo Bor, 37, and her elderly Vietnamese American parents were in a car heading west on the I-10 near Tonopah, about 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix. They were returning from a vacation in California. For some reason, they exited the freeway at 411th Avenue and were involved in a single-car accident about a half-mile off the freeway. The accident resulted in minor injuries to the parents and disabled the vehicle. Ms. Bor left her parents with the vehicle and went to seek help. Tragically, her body was found a mile from the accident scene later that same day. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is still trying to determine if her death was due to exposure, injuries sustained during the accident, or perhaps foul play. Results of an autopsy are pending.

Myself, I don’t need to see a copy of the autopsy report to know the real cause of her death. It was not exposure, accident-related injuries, or foul play. I believe that Mai Vo Bor died due to a language barrier. Sheriff’s officers admit that they could not communicate with her parents because they spoke Vietnamese only. Had they been able to communicate with Mai’s parents, the officers would have almost certainly learned that Mai was on foot somewhere in the vicinity seeking help. Instead, the officers cleaned up debris from the crash, cleared away the disabled vehicle and transported Mai’s parents to the hospital, leaving the 37-year-old woman alone in the desolate area.

It was only later that day around 3 pm that an interpreter at the hospital learned from Mai’s parents that Mai had also been involved in the accident and was still missing. A search team found her naked body a few hours later.

Now, there are many unanswered questions related to this tragedy. Why did the family pull off of I-10 at Tonopah? What caused the single-vehicle accident? What was her time of death? Why was she found unclothed? There are probably a dozen other questions of interest to the investigation. However, I would argue that the most important question is this: Why did the officers not communicate with the parents at the scene of the accident? Do officers have access to remote telephonic language interpretation services? If not, then why not? If so, why did the officers choose not to utilize the system to interview the parents?

This is not to place blame on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. But it is important to emphasize that Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in Arizona, and 40% are of limited English proficiency. Language access is critically important in the kind of emergency situations faced by our public safety officers on a daily basis. Personally, I hope that Ms. Bor’s death will not be in vain and that the Sheriff’s Office and other government agencies will review their policies, protocols and systems around language access to ensure that all Arizona residents, regardless of language spoken, have equal and expedient access to high quality public services.  It can be the difference between life and death.

- Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director