Wheelchairs' theft robs city of special program

What were they thinking? Did the thieves know what they were taking last week when they stole a trailer containing 21 wheelchairs used by children and adults in the city's adaptive-recreation program?

What next, swipe an amputee's prosthetic limb?

Run off with a blind man's cane?

When I learned that someone had broken into an equipment yard and absconded with a trailer packed with specially designed wheelchairs used in one of the most progressive and successful programs offered by the city of Las Vegas, I was at first stunned by the reckless stupidity. Then the questions began to swirl.

Who would stoop this low?

And who are we as a community if we're not outraged by such callousness?

The press specializes in bashing bureaucracy and rarely has a kind word for public officials, but the city's adaptive recreation program has been a shining example of the good that government can do. The division was created in 1990 and developed by John Chambers, a wheelchair Olympian who raised the adaptive recreation program to national recognition.

In addition to operating gyms, ball fields and parks, the city also provides an essential outlet for citizens who for whatever reason are forced to use wheelchairs to participate in recreation. Their stories of courage and tenacity are testaments to the indomitable essence of the human spirit. But this is a crime story.

Because the average wheelchair isn't made to maneuver on basketball and tennis courts, and the cost of adaptive sports equipment can be exorbitant, the city has provided the chairs. The curious out for a stroll on Wednesday evenings at city parks in the northwest have seen the wheelchairs put to good use on tennis courts, basketball courts and running tracks. Participating athletes even play rugby, golf and camp using the city's equipment.

Until now.

Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the trailer containing the 21 sports chairs was stolen. City officials say they believe the thieves probably thought they were taking tools or a generator, items easily pawned and sold for cash.

But even after removing the city's identification, an able-bodied person walking through the door of a medical equipment company with 21 specially designed wheelchairs is bound to generate suspicion. "There's not really a mechanism for selling the chairs," says adaptive recreation program manager Lonny Zimmerman. "There's really no market for them."

Replacement costs for the chairs, trailer and tire pumps are estimated at $85,000, but there's so much more than money at stake.

"When a wheelchair of this type is taken, it's not like when a pair of basketball shoes is taken, or when a field is flooded, that there's an alternative across the street or a store to simply replace it," Zimmerman says. "It significantly impacts the program in the area of service delivery."

Because the city's adaptive recreation program enjoys a national reputation and a relationship with a wheelchair equipment sponsor, thanks to the recently retired Chambers, replacing the chairs will take weeks instead of months once funds are made available.

Until then, the youth and adult athletes who take advantage of the city's program will be stuck in a place that everyone hates to be: on the sidelines watching the action instead of rolling into the middle of it.

For the athletes who used those wheelchairs, there's no place left to play.

"When the technology is taken from the end user, the program is shut down until the equipment can be replaced," Zimmerman says.

But it's more than an opportunity to shoot hoops and swing a golf club.

Life in a wheelchair can be isolating, and the adaptive recreation program provides an opportunity for socialization in a healthy atmosphere.

"The social fabric created through an adaptive program is so much bigger than the program itself," Zimmerman says. "When they're not hitting a few balls or pushing around the track, you'll see the kids horse playing in the corner, just like every other child."

Lose a soccer or softball league, and there's always another with plenty of games and degrees of skill. But those wheelchairs, they were the program.

As the proud father of a daughter who uses a wheelchair, I know the adaptive recreation program's athletes won't be defeated by this obstacle and insult. I know they've already endured more challenges than an able-bodied person experiences in 10 lifetimes.

But for now, they are stuck on the sidelines.

We must act quickly as a community to ensure they don't remain there.

• John L. Smith's column, reprinted from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, appears on Thursdays on the Appeal's Opinion page. E-mail him at smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295.