MORE ON MARK

One has only to look into Mark O’Brien’s eyes to see, “There but for the grace of God go I” (“The Man in the Iron Lung,” by Brenda Bell, July 31). How fortunate for the rest of us that we did not have to undertake such a challenge. How fortunate is he for having overcome it.

MONA RISS

Valley Village

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“The Man in the Iron Lung” elicited an unusually strong response. A representative of Toshiba contacted O’Brien and provided him with a new laptop computer--a request he had just been denied by the state’s Department of Rehabilitation. A company that designs voice-recognition computer systems has offered to evaluate him, but money remains a stumbling block. At a cost of $12,000 to $15,000, such a system remains out of reach, and because Department of Rehabilitation funds are earmarked for technology that allows the recipient to become self-supporting, O’Brien is not optimistic about his chances of receiving such a large sum. He was interviewed at length on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” after the article was published and subsequently received an inquiry from a New York publishing house that is interested in his poetry.