Steve Dimick — Law 'n' Stuff

This is how it started.

I knew Sam and Lori Nouv by sight and they knew me.  We didn’t know each other’s names but when I went into their donut shop they always knew what I wanted.  And they always had a smile.

And then there was the morning when, for these Cambodian immigrants, the American Dream turned into the American Nightmare.  The robbers must have been on drugs, for no sane crook would do to a victim what one of these guys did to Sam.  As a result of the pistol whipping he received – and he still doesn’t know why – the occipital bones around his right eye were shattered, there was major damage to his left eye, his face was almost unrecognizable, his teeth were loosened so badly that it was weeks before he could eat solid food, and a large portion of one ear was almost severed.

I heard a rumor about the robbery and beating several days before the story came out in the weekly Castro Valley Forum.  So I went to the donut shop to ask if the husband (still no name) was going to be alright.  The wife gave me the lowdown, including the fact that the terms of their medical insurance policy would leave them owing more than $10,000 in medical bills.

The next day I went back to the shop and slipped the wife $50 in cash.  But then I had an idea, and asked when her husband might be back to work.  The next day I sat down with Sam, learned his and Lori’s names and the first part of their story.

Sam has worked in the donut shop for about 22 years and has owned it for 19 years.  He goes to work every morning at 3:30 and opens for business at 4:00.  When the donuts are gone they close for the day, but that is often as late as 6:00 p.m.

After the early morning rush, Sam and Lori spell each other throughout the day, taking turns dealing with their three school-age children and trying to catch a short nap here and there.

And in 19 years, the longest they have ever closed the store has been for two days at a time.  No vacations for these two.

Our grandparents or great-grandparents were willing to work such hours when they came to America, but I don’t know any native-born American willing to do so.

The thing about the medical insurance was that the monthly premiums on the family policy were much higher than Sam could afford, so he changed to a policy with a $5,400 deductible, $50 co-payments and $500 a day hospital payments.  Add it all together and his out-of-pocket medical expenses were expected to be more than $10,000.  In addition, the couple had to hire a part-time worker to fill in for Sam until he is fully recovered.

So I sent out an e-mail to everybody in my address book who lives in Castro Valley, giving the background and asking for them to donate to Sam and Lori.  Through this direct appeal alone, they received almost $800.

Then the local Chamber of Commerce picked it up and people started jumping on the bandwagon.

This is the next part of the story:

Among the people on my e-mail list was our California Assemblyperson, Mary Hayashi, whose expertise is in health issues and who asked if I could set up a meeting between her and Sam.  She believed she might be able to intercede for him with his insurance company.  On the way back from this meeting, I discovered a lot more about Sam.

Sam was slow to open up to me; partially because he didn’t know me that well, partially because of cultural factors and partially because of the language barrier.  I knew that he had been orphaned at 13, but he finally told me that his parents had been murdered by the Khmer Rouge.  It seems they were suspected of having a bit of Vietnamese blood.

I hope to find out in time how Sam escaped.  The vicious Khmer Rouge spared neither the elderly nor the infirm nor the young.  But somehow he did escape and spent most of the next six years in a displacement camp in Vietnam before he and an entire planeload of other orphans were airlifted to the United States in a humanitarian gesture.

Now I was really intrigued, and we had these fliers printed up which were passed out all over town.

Ken Carbone set up the page for on-line donations through PayPal.  Kim McAllister picked up the story and posted it on her wildly popular blog about life in a hospital emergency room, www.emergiblog.com.  Ken Martin and the local Buon Tempo Italian Club sponsored a charity bocce ball tournament which raised more than $1,000.

All told, we raised $7,000, which we presented to Sam and Lori…

…along with this certificate:

That’s a small town for you.