Strangers Knew Silence Hurt Boy Already in Pain
Published: May 9, 1999
Paula Lariviere knew if she got to the right person, there was a good chance 7-year-old Dion Henderson would get the help he needed.
The Red Oak Elementary student lost his mother as a result of Monday's tornado and his two brothers remain hospitalized.
Lariviere, director of H.C.R. Manor Care's Alzheimer's unit, had learned through a co- worker that Dion also had lost both his hearing aids in the tornado. Jeff Bragg, a hearing specialist at Bragg's Better Hearing, was the first name she came across in the telephone directory.
"One of the other nurses told me that I'd never be able to find anyone who would help. But Jeff Bragg called me back within an hour and said he'd do whatever he could," Lariviere said. "In this situation, I knew there were a hundred others who would do the same."
Bragg ran some tests on the boy and found he was legally deaf. He fitted Dion with some demonstrator hearing aids until the new ones arrive this week.
The Hendersons' Moore home was demolished by the tornado. And with two sons in the hospital, Dion's father has spent most of his time attending to them.
"He's holding up pretty good," Troy Henderson said of his nephew Dion. "I think he was in shock at first and I tried to soothe him as best I could. When Dion found out he was going to get new hearing aids, he was really happy. This is the most I've seen him smile in the last couple of days."
Knowing that means everything to Lariviere, who dismisses the idea that her efforts were anything out of the ordinary.
"I did the easy thing," she said. "I just made
the phone call."
