Disabled Woman Can Eat Again

“Carla” has been deaf, blind, mute and mentally retarded since birth. She is cared for her parents in a legal guardianship made possible by Dade Legal Aid’s Guardianship Department. One of the few pleasures in life she enjoyed had been to eat solid food. She lost even that after an intubation to clean her teeth resulted in her front teeth being broken off. Forty-two months and three surgeries later, she was still without the needed implants and eating only liquid foods. The distraught parents told our Guardianship attorney, “She doesn’t want to chew, we have to liquefy all her food; can you please do something for Carla?” That’s where DCBA Past-President Robert J. Fiore jumped in after hearing of her plight. It took him 18 months of negotiating with revolving risk managers but he finally reached a settlement considered fair by all. Today “Carla” can chew her meals with new implants and is happier for it. Thanks to the enthusiastic willingness of attorney Fiore to represent “Carla” pro bono through Put Something Back, she can once again eat normally and is a happier young woman. Says Dade County Bar Past-President Fiore, “We are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Dade Legal Aid’s Guardianship Department, and help our client and her family through this prolonged struggle. These folks were very deserving of our attention, and their cause inspired us and provided great satisfaction and sense of achievement to our office.”