York grad left immobile, stranded at his Etobicoke home, after loss of $15,000 powerchair
Leslie Armstrong
Editor-in-Chief
Without his motorized wheelchair, 25-year-old Raymond Dell’Aera is homebound.
While visiting his friend in the Village on Saturday, September 22, the recent York grad and former Stong College council member left his $15,000 wheelchair by the garage loop behind the house on Saywell Avenue. When his friend helped him out the door around 6 p.m., the chair was gone.
“I was shocked—frozen, at first,” says Dell’Aera. “I had a period of disbelief for the first minute.”
Dell’Aera was born with muscular dystrophy, a condition which affects mobility, characterized by extremely low muscle tone. While he can stand, he can only last five to 10 minutes on his feet before losing energy, and, even then, his balance is poor.
The major setback in this theft is Dell’Aera’s loss of independence. He rides his motorized wheelchair on buses and subways frequently.
“With my power chair, I can leave my house, and I can go almost anywhere in the city,” he says, adding that without it, he can’t get around. As a recent professional writing graduate, he says his plans for job-hunting are now on hold.
As per his usual safety precaution, Dell’Aera locked the motorized wheelchair with a key, which turns it off so no one can use it, covered it in a plastic garbage bag, hid it behind a recycling bin, and drove it onto a bed of rocks between two garages.
“It’s not easy to steal—it weighs about 250 pounds,” he says. “You’d need at least two people to lift it somewhere. It’s not easy to move around.”
Dell’Aera concludes the chair must have been stolen sometime between 4 and 6 p.m. He says it was last seen around 4 p.m. by a friend of his. Because of the way it was hidden, he suspects someone living in the Village stole it.
“It was hidden so well,” says Felipe Matos, Dell’Aera’s friend, who was with him when the wheelchair disappeared. “And I guess throughout the day we didn’t think about it, and then by the time he had to leave around six, we realized it was gone, and it was just a mind fuck.”
Dell’Aera remains equally baffled, and says he thought his missing wheelchair was a practical joke.
“I can picture someone joyriding it drunk, but I never imagined someone would steal it.”
A two-year-old wheelchair, it was customized for Dell’Aera, with the perfect measurements for his height and width, equipped with a special chair back for his scoliosis.
“It’s someone’s chair, it’s very particular,” says Dell’Aera. “It’s hard to imagine anyone who would have the mindset that would allow themselves, morally, to take that.”
Thus far, the police investigation is slow going, but Dell’Aera says police are updating him regularly.
Matos says he is still deeply disturbed by the robbery.
“To see my friend like that, so distraught and the look on his face…it was just disheartening,” he recalls.
Matos says the York community, particularly Stong College, where he is the vice president, is doing many things to help Dell’Aera. Stong College council members and residence porters are collecting monetary donations with a change jar to raise funds to help replace the wheelchair.
Matos is also trying to organize a pub night and charge a cover to raise funds.
Social media have played a large role in spreading the word about Dell’Aera’s story. Dozens of tweets, marked with the hashtag #helpraymond, are spreading messages of sympathy and support. Numerous people have shared articles on Facebook and Twitter about Dell’Aera’s story, and a Twitter handle @HelpRaymond was created. A wordpress page has also been created to host upcoming information about a place to make official donations towards purchasing a new wheelchair for Dell’Aera.
Dell’Aera says it raises awareness about people with disabilities and issues pertaining to ableism.
“It’s bringing to the forefront to everyone what people take for granted—that they can walk a far distance,” Dell’Aera says.
With files from Melissa Sundardas
