A disabled Edmonton man is hoping to find his adapted vehicle after it was stolen from outside his Mill Creek home Monday.
“You sort of romanticize about honour amongst thieves. That they’d break-in and look at the car and say, ‘Oh, this guy has enough going against him, let’s move up the street,’” said Jacob Wouters.
Wouters is a bilateral amputee. His 2009 Honda CRV was equipped with hand controls so he could drive on his own.
Now, he has to rely on family and friends to get around.
“Financially it’s a burden too because we’re middle class,” said Maureen Elhatton, Wouter’s wife.
“We don’t have a lot of extra funds to go and replace all that stuff,” she added.
Wouters lost his first leg because of poor circulation in 2012.
“As a single amputee I did quite well. I was skiing, standing up, and all the rest of it. But to the surprise of everyone the same thing happened to the other leg, so a year later I lost the other leg,” he said.
He worried that would be the end of his passion for skiing, until a friend convinced him to try sit skiing.
“This was a tremendous challenge the first time I did it,” he said.
Before long Wouters began competing and was even training for the upcoming Birkie race. But his specialized ski equipment was stolen along with his SUV.
“Huge loss and with that special equipment, it’s hard to find at certain places. It’s not something you can just stop by at any shop and get it at,” said Spencer McAvoy, from Skiier’s Sportshop.
The SUV is light green with license plate 48-M554.
Wouters hopes his vehicle and stolen equipment are returned before the race in three weeks.
With files from Reegan Hasegawa
