Herb James got the gift of hearing 64 years ago. He's been paying it forward ever since

Herb James' life changed 64 years ago on an operating table in Sweden. He was almost completely deaf. 

And then he wasn't.

"I heard a kind of click and then a flood of noise came up," he said. "I was nearly crying."

The surgery to repair James' ears was groundbreaking at the time. It was also expensive and James couldn't cover the entire cost.

The doctor — renowned specialist Dr. Lennart Holmgren — told him to pay what he could and pay it forward.

Early years

James grew up in Vernon, B.C. and in his early teens, his hearing began to fail. He wore hearing aids to high school and traveled to Vancouver for appointments with an ear specialist. Doctors determined that three tiny bones in both of James' middle ears had become calcified and weren't functioning correctly.

At 19, James discovered doctors in Stockholm had developed a procedure that might be able to restore his hearing, which had deteriorated to about 20 per cent in both ears.

"I hopped on a train, got on a ship and went to Stockholm," he said. "Pretty exciting."

When James bumped into his old friend, Terry Hurst, at a museum in Sweden, he took at as it a good omen.

She did, too.

"I didn't even know he was in Europe," she laughed. "It was one of those amazing coincidences."

Gift of hearing

A week after James' first surgery, he returned to the hospital to have the same procedure on his other ear, which was also successful.

Holmgren told him he'd been given a rare gift and should consider passing along his good fortune to someone else.

James didn't think much of it until five years later when he needed a follow-up procedure, which was performed at renowned specialist Dr. Howard House's clinic in California.

House told him the same thing.

James decided that since he'd been given the gift of hearing, it was time for him to listen. 

"I was reading a story in Reader's Digest about an audio testing machine — a portable device — to check the hearing of preschool children."

"I bought one for $500 and I loaned it out to preschool and kindergarten schools locally."

International Sound Foundation

James let schools use his device until the province bought some equipment of its own, which meant his machine was no longer needed.

"It was just collecting dust," he said.

He forgot about the machine until he ran into a group of people from Fiji and their conversation gravitated toward hearing tests. Before long, James was on a flight to Fiji and the International Sound Foundation was born.

Paying it forward

James is a heck of a salesman, which served him well, recruiting local doctors to volunteer to perform hearing tests and minor procedures in foreign countries.

His friend, Colin Leech-Porter, says James was also an expert at convincing foreign governments, companies and others to help cover lodging and travel costs.

"He set up in a number of different countries to try to bring in an expert for the local people to deal with," Leech-Porter said.

"His big thing was the sales."

Eventually, the Canadian International Development Agency lent its support and the International Sound Foundation was helping initiatives in Kenya, Costa Rica, Nepal and other countries.

By his count, the ISF helped provide free hearing tests to thousands of children all over the world and James was honoured for his service with the Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002.

"Thank goodness for the blessing of my deafness," he said. "Without it, none of this would have happened."