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Deaf Daredevil Kitty O'Neil Dies at 72

11/7/2018

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'Fastest woman alive' was stunt double for Wonder Woman.

For one memorable stunt in the “Wonder Woman” television series, Kitty O'Neil jumped off the roof of a Hilton hotel in Los Angeles and fell 127 feet before landing on an inflated air bag, setting a new women’s high-fall record, The Washington Post reports. “If I hadn’t hit the center of the bag, I probably would have been killed,” she told the Post.

A barrage of childhood diseases, including mumps, measles and smallpox, nearly killed her at 5 months and left her deaf. Her Native American mother taught her sign language and lip reading.

She went on to play piano and cello, to train for the Olympics as a diver (injury and illness made her miss the Games) and to drive at 417 miles per hour.

After brushes with death that included spinal meningitis and cancer, she decided to test herself relentlessly. She became a legendary Hollywood stunt woman, standing in for Lindsay Wagner of “The Bionic Woman,” dangling out of a sixth-story window for an episode of the television detective show “Baretta,” braving rising waters on a sinking jet plane in the movie thriller “Airport ’77,” and rolling, crashing or racing cars for films such as “The Blues Brothers” and “Smokey and the Bandit II.”

She notched an average speed of 512.71 mph during two runs — obliterating the previous record of 321 mph, set by Lee Breedlove in 1965 — driving a hydrogen peroxide-fueled vehicle, and reaching a maximum of 618 mph.

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One Is Blind, One Deaf -- Together They Work to Make Voting Accessible

11/6/2018

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Blind voters need special machines.

Helen and William Craig are two of the most politically active citizens in Sitka, Alaska, KCAW reports.

An active Republican, William attended the party’s state convention this year as a delegate. Helen is an independent and at the Sitka Assembly meetings she asks members to sign “yes” or “no” as they vote in American Sign Language so she can follow along.

Helen lost her hearing at the age of seven from measles, mumps and rubella. 

William has Retinitis Pigmentosa in both eyes, and at age 38 he was diagnosed as legally blind.

After the Help America Vote Act was passed in 2004, the state bought accessible voting machines for all polling places that display the ballot on digital touch screens, equipped with magnified text and audio cues. At Sitka’s municipal election this year, the machine worked – it sometimes hasn’t in the past – and the city put up a big partition around the machine that allowed William to vote in absolute privacy.

Before this, William had to verbally dictate his vote to another person. 
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The Craigs appreciate this, but are they are frustrated by one thing: they still cannot participate in in-person absentee voting. None of Alaska’s absentee in-person voting locations have machines for the blind.

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Pioneering Deaf Actor Dies at 90

11/5/2018

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Bernard Bragg founded the National Theater for the Deaf in 1967.

Bernard Bragg, a trailblazer for deaf performers, died at 90 on Oct. 29 in Los Angeles, The New York Times reports.

His longtime friend  Marlee Matlin confirmed his death.

He graduated in 1947 from the New York School for the Deaf, and continued his education at what was then Gallaudet College, where he studied theater and acted in school plays.

He enjoyed performing, but as a deaf person he had no obvious career path . He began teaching at the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley. Then, in 1956, he made a life-changing trip to see the mime Marcel Marceau perform in San Francisco.

After that he began appearing at clubs in the San Francisco area like the hungry i, working in his own invented style, which he called sign mime, combining elements of American Sign Language with the tools of mime.

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Loyal Red Sox Fan, Losing Her Eyesight, Wins World Series Ticket

11/1/2018

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The biggest thrill was meeting Big Papi.

A week ago, Jeri Schey was going through Twitter, which she reads in large font with a bifocal on her one non-blind eye, the Providence Journal reports. She saw a contest offered by Papa John’s Pizza.

It asked people to tweet back Red Sox fan photos and why they would like to see the World Series. The prize: two tickets to the first game.

Jeri sent in a photo of herself in a Red Sox jersey hugging Wally the mascot at Fenway Park last Mother’s Day.

She tweeted: “Going blind this seriously wld make me cry!”

The next morning she had a direct message on her Twitter page, and she really did start to cry: Papa John’s told her she’d won.

Jeri has suffered from retinitis pigmentosa since childhood, and at 44, her vision is almost gone. But she still watches every Red Sox game, sitting close to the TV.

This time, she got to watch the first game at Fenway. Afterwards she tweeted a video in which she tearfully watched her heroes. Then came a second surprise.

Two days later, Jeri’s phone rang, and a Papa John's rep told her, “Jeri, we’d like to fly you out to L.A., all expenses paid, to see another game.”

The biggest surprise came during the third inning, when two Papa John’s reps asked Jeri to follow them. The reps led Jeri out of the park to a private space, where a familiar face came into view. When she looked closely, she couldn’t believe it.


“Stop crying so we can take some good pictures,” said Big Papi.

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LSH is a charitable organization as designated by Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code, #95-2916098. Donations to LSH are tax-deductible.
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