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>>Sy Doan: Hello lady, how are you?
>>Good, how are you?
>>Sy Doan: How can I help you today?
>>I have some pants I need...
>>Sy Doan: Alright, this is the fitting room.
Why don't you help yourself?
>>Okay.
>>Sy Doan: Let me know when you're ready.
>>Okay.
>>Sy Doan: Okay.
My name is Sy Doan.
Oh, I know how to sew when I was 11 and when I came
over to this country I do a lot of different kinds of job
but finally I think sewing is my passion. So I decided to go back
to work and if I'm going to go back to work
to open the shop. It's a long way but I made it.
The accident happened, I'm so sorry to say that,
almost over five years ago and happen on my birthday.
It's so sad.
It's still emotional a little bit.
I climb up the ladder to fix the gutter and when I go down
and this is not the first time, this is you can call 100 time go
up and down the ladder, no problem
and this time the ladder flipped and when the ladder flipped,
it hit at the back of my back hit the rail of the deck
so it broke the T4 & T5. In five seconds I don't know how many
times my body rolled but when I land
on the ground I could not move my leg so I know this is no fun.
This is not bruise or cut or sprain
or something you can easily overcome
in a couple of days or whatever.
It's a long journey, long painful journey and I'd
like to say that I don't know want anybody to go
through what I go through.
First, I know Nancy through a guy named Bob
who installed the chairlift for my house. You know,
the chairlift can help you go from the first floor
to the second floor. And during the conversation he said,
"I know a lady named Nancy,
she know the special sewing machine can help you" and I say,
I raise my mind I say, "How she have a special machine
for the handicapped people?"
I know but I just have that in my mind and one day I decided
to contact her to see how she have a special machine
and I call her, Nancy showed up.
Of course nancy doesn't know the sewing machine is a special
machine but she says she have a resource to help me.
>>Well, it was a longer process.
We started initially with exploring
and developing a solution with the sewing machines
and usually Sy worked from home part-time.
It was a journey.
When I first met Sy he wasn't ready to drive or really,
necessarily ready even to go outside of the home too much.
At that point really struggling to manage pain and adjust
to the disability so it was a journey.
Well, his primary task, of course, is the sewing
and unless we could find a solution
to modify the sewing machines, he wasn't really going
to be able to return to work so that's why we started with that
and it did allow him to return to work gradually as he was able
to tolerate more and more work hours and build his tolerance
for being up and in the chair.
>>Sy Doan: So when I have a machine, it's not the machine
but I start to see how my body can endure work.
So I start to work one hour a day and then lately I increased
to two hours a day, to three hours a day, four hours a day
until I can have enough strength I decided to go back
to work eight hours a day, six days a week.
I met Desirae several time and to her help, you know,
I got this iBOT and I think everything I wished
for I got it.
>>I came here. Well, I interviewed Sy first at home
and he gave me a list of all of duties that he would need
to be able to accomplish.
>>Sy Doan: I work hard.
I'm the hardest worker in Omaha.
I work six days a week.
I sorry I vacuum the floor, clean the bathroom,
do the sewing, deliver clothing, taking care of customer,
order stuff, answering the phone all by myself and I love it.
The accident it cut me back to 50%,
I can not do like I used to do.
>>And then I came to the worksite and just kind of looked
around to see. Clearly there are things up on the ceiling
that he needed to be able to reach. He needs to be able
to take measurements in different places
where the customers are and they stand on a kind of a platform.
And then he also, you know,
once the machines were moved here we needed
to figure that out.
He does steaming, there's so many different aspects to it
so I just kind of looked through what did he do,
what did the place look like. And then Sy met me here
and he walked me through all of the different duties
that he was going to need to be able to do. And based
on those things we came up with the idea
that perhaps the iBOT might be helpful because of the way
that it functions and that it would potentially allow him
to do every job duty in the business.
We looked at different types of chairs that also raise up
and down and have different types of functions
and everything, but this particular chair met every
single one of the job duties that he was going to,
he would be able to do independently with the chair.
So that's how we ended up deciding on the iBOT.
>>Sy Doan: And, you know, sometime we have a little joke,
half joke, half sad.
If my case like in my country, Vietnam, I can became a beggar.
Seriously, because there is no system over there
to help people who are disabled like me.
I'd become a beggar, but here look at this, I become owner
of the company; open a shop and I pay tax.
I don't receive Social Security anymore. So I become normal
like every citizen, and I believe I'm a productive member
of the society.
I don't feel like I'm useless person.
That's a wonderful thing.
[ Silence ]
>>Sy Doan: I use, this one I can use the elbow
or I can use my hand, so I use the elbow. And the funny thing
about it, since I use the elbow a lot and some of my friends
who work here with me they start to use the elbow, too!
Ah, yeah, that's funny, that's funny.
Do you see that?
>>Mmm, mmm.
>>Sy Doan: I can use both hands,
I can use both hands like a normal people.