A Gift from TV News.

By Judd McIlvain, Broadcast Journalist�2008

Several years ago I got a letter at KCBS TV with a picture of a beautiful teenage girl taken at her senior high school prom.� This young woman had a smile on her face that said I am ready to take on the world.� But, what she did not know was that in a short time she was going to face a world that was going to be extremely cruel to her.

The letter was from her Mom to me at the KCBS TV News�Troubleshooter Office in�Los Angeles.� I will call this young woman Maria, not her real name, because I do not want to invade her privacy.

Her single parent mother said right after her graduation from High School, she was diagnosed with a life-threatening blood disease.� County Doctors said they would have to immediately remove both of her legs from the knees down to save her life. �After the operation her Mom, who had two other children, said Mari sat in her county furnished wheelchair and cried a lot. �She had lost all her dreams. �She did not want to see her friends like this. �Her boy friend moved on. �

Her Mom asked me if I could help her get artificial legs.� Prostheses were extremely expensive.� I did her story on the Troubleshooter Segment on the KCBS TV evening news, because I knew someone would step forward to help her.

Within one day a man who specialized in making the latest models of prostheses call me and said he would make her legs at no cost. Now I needed transportation for her to make two or three appointments a week for several months at the prosthesis lab.� ��I contacted a local private ambulance service and explained the situation. �The owner agreed to have an ambulance take her to each appointment and bring her back home.� She got her new legs and I did a follow up story and thanked the prosthesis maker and the ambulance company on the air.

Now fast forward several years. �I am riding on the KCBS TV Float in the Sept. 16th Independence Day Parade in East LA.� I am waving at the large crowds along the Parade route, it�s always a fun Saturday morning.

As the Parade wound its way out into some of the neighborhoods, �I see a young woman run from a corner toward our float, I wave, and she yells, �it�s Maria, and this is my boy friend.�� I was so surprised, it was Maria waving, smiling and running.� �This young woman running and waving said everything that could be said about the good that TV news can do, one viewer at a time.

Note:� My first producer at KCBS TV asked to be reassigned because she said I was misleading the viewers because I could not help everyone, and if you cannot help everyone you should not be on TV creating an image of helping people.�� Well Ms. Producer, Maria who got her life back would NOT agree.�� And since that producer left there have been so many more people we have been able to help. We helped one viewer get a new heart.� He sends me a Christmas Card each year.
�� � With the way God works, I have a feeling that first producer will someday need help, and lets hope there is a TV Troubleshooter to take up her cause.

���� Editor's Note:� You can contact Judd McIlvain at www.Troubleshooter.com, and as you can see in this web site �he is still helping people.