– Hearing aid mistaken for iPod

A hearing aid does not look the same as an iPod.
Unfortunately for one deaf 4-year old girl, that
wears a hearing aid, a thief thought it was
an iPod. He grabbed it right out of her ear while
she was playing on the school grounds at Cape Town,
South Africa. Her parents are now saving money to
buy her another hearing aid.

– Mistrial declared because of a deaf juror

The defense team of Scott Speer, not deaf, was
able to convince the judge of a mistrial in
Akron, Ohio. Speer was indicted on charges of
drowning death. The prosecutors ran a 911 tape
in front of the jury, which was useless to a
deaf juror, as the defense pointed out.

– A school bus that never arrived

14-year old deaf Dallas student Courtney Alladin
waited for the school bus to arrive on first day of
her mainstreamed classes. She would continue to
wait for six more days, and the bus still never
arrived. Fed up, Courtney’s mother contacted a
local TV news station to have this problem shown
on TV. Alas, the bus arrived the next day!

– A strange invention that claims to help the deaf

A newspaper in England said Lucy Brewer, a deaf woman,
studying to become a forensic scientist, won an award
for her invention -  a handheld computer that is
supposed to replace subtitles with sounds. It is strange.
Why would the deaf person want to substitute subtitles
for sounds? Did the writer of the story get the facts
wrong?

– A Deaf Home without power for five days

Hurricane Irene blacked out much of Massachusetts,
including the town of South Attleboro. It left a deaf
senior citizen without power in his house for five full
days. He had no access to a telephone, a TV, a videphone,
a TTY and alerting devices. And making matters worse
he needed medical attention, and somehow was able to get
someone to get medical emergency services personnel to
his residence. He is very angry about the whole thing.