|
Luis Ruiz, bringing joy to hospitalized children in casts.
Breaking a bone is painful and scary for children, but at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Luis makes getting a cast interesting.
He is an orthopedic technician, who brings joy to kids by colorfully customizing casts with their favorite movie or cartoon characters, sports figures and much more.
How did he start?
(Story continues from "Read More")
"About ten years ago, a little boy asked me to draw a happy face on his cast," Luis told People magazine.
"I told him, 'You know what, I'm really not good at drawing. I'd rather not. I might mess it up.'"
The boy kept asking for a smiley face, and Luis gave it a try. The little guy was thrilled with the smiley face. "It lit him up!" Luis recalls.
Ever since, Luis offers colorful cast creations to every child who enters the hospital with broken bones, and he has now painted thousands of casts.
One story that stands-out for him was when a girl who was also suffering from cancer asked him to draw Wonder Woman on her cast.
"It made her very happy to go around with that [drawing], because she got a lot of compliments on it," Luis remembers.
Why does he do this?
"The kids just bring me joy," he says. "I'm kind of a fun guy and a little kid myself inside, and I like having fun and making kids smile, and they make me smile."
Editor's Note:
To learn more people.com/human-interest/california-hospital-tech-creates-art-on-kid-casts/ and chla.org/about-children-s-hospital-los-angeles. We learned of this heartwarming story in Nice News.
In the next KazanToday: 23-years-later, a student thanks his teacher for making a huge difference in his life.
|
