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Show Operation Drcgos proved to be total success . v ' ' J : f 7 : r-V i-- i f 1 X I who won the next day. He was very interested in the voting process and observed it at school. Dragos comes from a family of four. He has an older brother, Bogdan, who is 13. His father is a technician and a draftsman who draws plans for many things, including in-cluding cars. His mother is a nurse who works at the school for the deaf. Their apartment consists of two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, bathroom and two balconies on the sixth floor. Tutored in English for two years by a friend of his mother, Dragos spoke English well and became more fluent the longer he was here. He is a good student, and studies calculus, geometry and physics. He will take English in school next year. While here Dragos enjoyed the kindness of his next door neighbor Ann Butler, a sixth grade teacher at Adam's Elementary in Layton, who took him to school with her for part of the time. The children loved him and learned about Romania, its political pol-itical system and people. He made many friends there. Some other things he enjoyed about Utah and America are the movies which he watched on the VCR, especially "E.T." and "Superman." His proficiency with the computer grew with much time and effort. He especially loved a program called "Prodigy." American television and cartoons were fun for him. In Romania they only have two I V V, I I l: " " & I Midi "i, ' J , v I r v ' M -vv t" - 1 -HA- 1 I : i. : 7 , - . I I j i l'j " " ' I I K : f ; 1 Bp h 1 Dragos and Dr. Steven Scott were both excited about the results of the sucessful surgery to correct an orthopedic problem, prob-lem, which if untreated would have eventually crippled the boy. Dragos recovered remarkably well and quickly and was soon able to attend school in Bountiful. By SUSIE DAVIS If you had been at Kennedy International In-ternational Airport three months ago, you might have seen an 11-year-old boy with a beautifully inscribed in-scribed sign hanging around his neck. "I am Dragos from Romania for Dr. Lund in Salt Lake City." He had been sent from Romania by a courageous mother who had seized an opportunity to have her son receive medical treatment. On a recent trip to Romania, Dr. Glen Lund and his wife, Anne, of Bountiful were able to offer medical assistance and current medical knowledge to the people of Romania. Dr. Lund, an ear, nose and throat specialist, met the mother of Dragos while helping at a school for hearing -impaired children. Mrs. Hatu-Tieru helps the children with their hearing aids and equipment, and this is how she became acquainted with the Lunds. At the end of their stay, the Lunds were approached by Mrs. Hatu-Tieru, who asked them if there was a way they could help her son, Dragos, who had an orthopedic problem with his ankle and a bleeding disorder which prevented surgery in Romania and France. Dr. Lund told her he'd check into the possibilities when he arrived home. Dr. Lund was able to make arrangements ar-rangements for Dragos to have surgery through services at Primary Children's Hospital if the family could get him to Salt Lake City. She called and confirmed the trip to New York, but the Salt Lake leg of the trip was a little vague. Feeling a little uneasy about the travel arrangements, Dr. Lund mentioned men-tioned this to one of his patients, an airline pilot. The airline pilot took it upon himself to fly the "red eye" special to New York and meet Dragos. It is a good thing because there was no ticket to Salt Lake City. This kind gentleman escorted Dragos to Salt Lake and back to New York, helped pay for his ticket and, in part, made mis humanitarian effort possible. Upon arriving in Salt Lake and then Bountiful to the Lunds' home, Dragos was medically diagnosed and treated. He tested negative for the Von-Willebrands blood disorder and got along well with the surgery. The procedure corrected a tendon which slipped over his ankle. The surgeons created a groove and fastened the tendon correctly. If untreated, this painful problem would have eventually crippled Dragos. He healed beautifully, and was back riding a bike in his cast after just a few days. On the way home from the airport, air-port, Mrs. Lund stopped at the grocery store and sent her son and Dragos in to pick up a few things. After a long time Dragos came out with a pineapple, an orange, a banana, ba-nana, and a coconut that he wanted to take back to Romania, in three months! Fruit and many staples are very scarce in Romania, and there are no supermarkets. Before he left he wanted to go to the grocery store again and hear the talking cash registers one more time. fa u f 4 1 i "'I " 9 1 Eleven-year-old Dragos Hatu-Tieru landed at Kennedy International Interna-tional Airport in August with this sign around his neck, unescorted and hoping to find a way to Dr. Glen Lund of Bountiful Boun-tiful who had arranged for orthopedic surgery for the boy. His courageous mother had been able to arrange for Dragos to get to New York, but when he arrived just how the trip to Salt Lake City was going to occur was still a question. The question was answered when one of Dr. Lund's patients, Bruce Gillian who is an airline pilot, flew the "red-eye" to New York and escorted Dragos to Salt Lake. television stations; one is state-owned state-owned and the other is Bulgarian, which is like Russian. Dragos has studied the Russian language in school, and while flying from New York, he translated some Russian for the passengers from the in-flight movie, "Hunt for Red October. Oc-tober. ' ' Unable to think of a favorite food, he apparently liked almost everything, "except root beer, Dr. Pepper, vanilla ice cream and creamed 'anything.' " But Mrs. Lund reminded him he did like vanilla ice cream with homemade fudge sauce! Sorry to see him go, the Lunds reflected back to their love of the Romanian people. Mrs. Lund said "The Romanians are very loving, dedicated, thankful people. They are patient, but anxious for a better way of life." Taking back many wonderful memories of a wonderful family who reached out, Dragos is going home with new insight. He is taking tokens of our society....souvenirs ; such as computer watches, an AMFM tape recorder, earrings for mom, a trapper keeper for his brother, a Mormon Tabernacle Choir tape, hot wheel cars. And he ' is taking with him a legacy of generosity that the Lunds and others have shown him. Christian Dragos Hatu-Tieru simply said, "Everyone was very nice. I didn't know there were that many nice people in the world." As he prepared to return to his home in Romania on Monday, Dragos took time out to once again enjoy his favorite computer program, Prodigy. "I love everything about America" he said when asked how he liked the United States. i When asked how he liked it here, Dragos replied, "I like everything about America. Since I was three years old, I wanted to come to America." The first thing he did when he got to the Lunds was to ride a bike. He loved riding everything. "I like Lake Powell and driving the jet ski, and four wheeler, and the bike." When asked what they ride in Romania, he replied, "Tractors. ..but no kids ride them." Dr. Lund said, "The amazing thing about Dragos was his adaptability. adap-tability. I admire the way he learned so quickly. He not only learned all the names of our family and the neighborhood kids, but he could discuss the NBA teams and BYU L r opponents. He had an amazing ability abil-ity to absorb everything. 41I enjoyed his humor and his in-quisitiveness. in-quisitiveness. He adapted so well to our way of life. He always wanted to go with me, shopping, to the barn, to harvest com, to my Scout assignment, and to my Sunday School class. He was very proud of having his own Book of Mormon, Those of us who do this sort of thing receive much more than we give. We grew to love Dragos." Coming from a communist country coun-try with a vastly different political situation, Dragos was very aware of the differences. He admired democracy democ-racy and was very excited about the elections. He knew everyone who was running for office and asked |