Thieves steal Ohio boy's ability to hear - KOBI-TV NBC5 / KOTI-TV NBC2

Columbus, Ohio (WTHR) — Thieves in Columbus, Ohio got more than technology when they broke in a vehicle last week.

They literally stole a young boy’s ability to hear. They took the device that allows him to hear, through a cochlear implant.

Last Tuesday 4-year-old Sora experienced hearing in his left ear for the very first time.

He’d just received his second cochlear implant and all the accessories and parts to make it work – battery, microphone, processor – a backpack and box full of equipment. But when they got home from the doctor that day, mother Laura Coate says Sora was throwing a tantrum.

So mom took her son inside and left the backpack in her car, which was parked outside her apartment. The next morning, everything was gone.

“There was a big hole on his side of the car. It was just busted glass,” Laura Coate recalls.