Dina Carrion holds out her hand so that Paul LaPorte can put on her engagement ring. LaPorte proposed to Carrion at her work using a boom to raise himself up to her fourth story office window. Photo by Brian Corley
Love got a lift Friday with a little help from United Rentals.
Armed with a diamond solitaire ring, red and silver mylar balloons in the shape of Hershey's kisses, a cell phone, camcorder, a single rose, a banner, a harness and a 60-foot boom truck, Paul Laporte proposed to his love of eight months, Dina Carrion, from four stories high Friday morning.
And she said, "Yes!"
"I've been thinking about it for a while," he said as he strapped on his safety harness. "I wanted to be more creative."
Laporte, 46, a Carson City resident who works as an auto painter in Reno, said, "She inspires me, and that's all I'm going to say because this going to be in the newspaper."
Coming out of the building at King and Division streets where she works on the fourth floor for the state's attorney general, Carrion could only say she was "very" surprised.
After receiving the ring, kiss and hug, Carrion said she puts nothing past Laporte.
"He's good at that kind of stuff. He always has been. I don't know why I'm surprised," she said as she issued another challenge. "I'd like to see you top that. I can't wait to see what I'm getting for Christmas."
To which he said, "OK, you heard her."
Laporte took his plan to a crew of three at United Rentals, who helped implement it.
Norma Sommer, Janice Gatrell and Shawn Devita trained Laporte to use the machine and filmed him as he learned in the rental yard. Devita drove the truck onto the lawn of the building and hoisted Laporte into the air as Sommer and Gatrell drove up to watch.
"That's the coolest do-dah," he said. "They gave me a deal on that thing. When they were describing it to me, I thought there's no way I can afford something like this."
Once hoisted, Laporte called Carrion on his cell phone and waited while she put him on hold.
When he finally coaxed her through her boss' office to the window, with camcorder, ring and cell phone all in hand he managed to unfurl a homemade banner that read "Marry me Dina."
Carrion's friend Wanda Martin said, "She's just fell in love with him. She said he's so much fun. And she's just a wonderful girl. She's just great."
Carrion, 42, said she feels the same about him. "He's such a sweetheart. A great guy."