It's not a Bluetooth headset!
The first time someone snatched the speech processor from behind her son's ear, Hilda Giron got it back. She’d been shopping for groceries and shouted to the cashier to watch three-year-old Jose while she took off after the young thief and his accomplice.
The boys probably thought they had grabbed a Bluetooth headset, which are in high demand now that drivers are required to use their mobile phones hands-free. Luckily, the boys ditched the earpiece – the external part of Jose's implanted hearing device, as they fled.
Giron found it in the market carpark, still intact.
Then a week ago, she and Jose were having lunch at a McDonald's when two teenagers grabbed the earpiece and ran. This time, the thieves got away.
"He kept asking, 'Where is it? Where is it?' – repeating words that the processor had helped Jose learn to say.
Advocates for the deaf at first welcomed the Bluetooth craze: Deaf people with cochlear implants, they thought, wouldn't stand out so much if everyone wore little gadgets behind their ears. But some now fear that Bluetooth headsets will become as popular with thieves as iPods -- and that deaf people will become inadvertent targets.
Comments
i worry about having experiences like this which is why i never rally put my hair up when i go out. i at least keep some hair over my ears so my cochlear implant is hidden! i couldnt bear the thought of my cochlear implant BTE device being stolen as id be lost without it! some people can be so silly to think its a blue tooth device and not know they are targetting a deaf person. i hope u were ok and not hurt when they grabbed your cochlear implant laura x
Posted by: laura jakubowski | July 20, 2008 10:49 AM