This is the story of the pinball wizard, and of the little girl he wanted to work a little magic on.
Mike Loftus is a retired contractor in Ottawa and life-long pinball enthusiast. Now he’s turned his childhood passion into a second career. He’s opened the Ottawa Pinball Arcade.
“I started collecting in ’92. I bought my first game and I've been amassing games since then,” says Loftus. “And really what I'm trying to do is open a window to the past where we have those classic games from the golden era of the arcade.”
Loftus has set up over two dozen games from his collection in a room adjoining The Neighbourhod Pub in Nepean. He says that makes it by far the largest vintage pinball arcade in Canada.
It makes the Ottawa Pinball Arcade something special, and Loftus wanted do something special for the official grand opening.
And that’s where the little girl comes in.
Six-year-old Lamitta El-Roz was at the grand opening. She was the one sitting on a tall stool at the Pac-Man game, which she prefers over pinball. “Because it's a little easier for me. I can't reach to the sides," she says.
Lamitta is an infectiously-happy child, remarkable considering what life has thrown at her. She was born 28 weeks premature weighing just 2.2 pounds. She has cerebral palsy. She can’t walk, crawl, or even sit up on her own. Her father holds her while she plays Pac-Man.
But there is an operation, performed by a specialist in St. Louis, Missouri. He’s done it thousands of times with great success. The specialist has reviewed Lamitta’s case and believes she’s a good candidate.
It’s an operation that could change her life.
“The ultimate goal is getting walking on her own,” says her father, Robbie El-Roz. "What the doctor is foreseeing is she’ll be able to walk using a walker.”
The operation and the trip will cost tens of thousands of dollars. The El-Roz family has applied to OHIP for funding but Robbie El-Roz says similar requests have been turned down in the past. So they are trying to raise the money themselves. They’ve started a GoFundMe campaign called Lamitta’s Wish to Walk.
Which brings us back to the pinball man.
Upon hearing of Lamitta’s situation, Mike Loftus turned his arcade opening into a pinball tournament fundraiser. He even donated a $1,200 game from his collection as the grand prize. “With a hundred percent of the proceeds going towards Lamitta's fund for the Wish to Walk,” he says. “To get her the operation she needs so she can walk."
You could say one man’s inner-child wanted to come to the aid of a child in need.
And if it all goes according to plan, Lamitta will be doing a lot more than playing Pac-Man. She knows just what she wants to do once she can walk.
"I would play with my sister and help Mommy and do some other stuff."
Who knows? Maybe some of that other stuff includes a little pinball.
