Beeeeeeeeeeeeppppppp. . . . . . A speeding motorcycle came screaming down the street toward Junry as he was cautiously pulling his scooter across the road on his way home from work. He didn’t hear the horn warning him to get out of the way. Maybe out of annoyance, the speeding motorist decided to pull in front of Junry’s motorcycle to hit or kick the scooter’s front wheel causing Junry to crash face-first into the pavement. Junry came away from the wreck with serious facial abrasions, scrapes on his arms and legs and missing three of his front teeth.
It has now been one month since the wreck where Junry almost lost his life simply because he is Deaf.
Junry is a bright, young deaf man who works at the IDEA shop as a highly trained electrician and plumber. He is one of IDEA’s graduates who received his training on-the-job. He is a husband and a father to a 5-year old son and 3-year old baby girl, who are both hearing children. His wife is also deaf and working in IDEA’s Fly Tie Industry.
Junry returned to work one week after the incident, and had to remain careful to keep his healing wounds from touching anything that would hurt him further. Although his face was healing, his missing teeth completely changed the way he related to people. This happy, outgoing young man began to avoid people because he felt so embarrassed by his teeth. When chatting with others, he suppressed his laugh to hide his teeth. He always covered his mouth with his hand and would not laugh anymore because he felt self-conscious. Some of his fellow deaf workers teased him that they would replace his missing teeth with a carabao’s teeth (which is a normal joke here when somebody is missing teeth).
For Junry, going through these trials was certainly very hard, but there is no way to keep him down. Knowing that he could not afford dentures on his own, IDEA made an appointment for him with a dentist. He soon had new teeth in no time, thanks to the ministry IDEA Philippines. As soon as he got his dentures, he came by the office proudly wearing his wide smile once again and showing his new teeth. Junry said, “Thank you IDEA for providing me more than just a denture. It really made me feel good and confident. I can smile big now.”
Indeed, Junry’s smile and confidence rapidly returned and we are just so happy and thankful that the outcome of the accident was not worse. IDEA does a lot more than just help educate deaf children. Just like Junry, we are all family.
