With wheelchair taken, Oakland 5-year-old stranded at home



Photo: Peter Dazeley Photo: Peter Dazeley Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close With wheelchair taken, Oakland 5-year-old stranded at home 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Most mornings, Megan Cody goes through the same routine. She lugs a 20-pound wheelchair down about 10 steps from the Oakland duplex she lives in.

Then, she goes back in the house to carry Joaquin — her 5-year-old son — to his chair, just in time for the bus to take him to school. The chair is a sparkly blue color, and it even has his name embroidered on it.

But Monday morning, when she returned outside with her child in her arms, the chair was gone.

“I just can’t imagine what someone’s going to do with it,” said Cody, 40. “I just feel sad. I don’t know how to get my son to school, which is ridiculous.”

Joaquin did not go to his kindergarten class at Bella Vista Elementary School on Monday, and until his mom gets a new wheelchair for him, he’ll just keep being marked absent, she said.

Joaquin suffers from seizures, and a backpack that was attached to his stolen chair contained a pump that he needs to transmit medicine for his episodes. He can’t swallow liquids, and that pump is also the way he gets water, Cody said.

“He’s not going to be able to go to school until l can get him a new wheelchair and a new pump,” Cody said.

Now, to manage his medical problems, the family has to do what they can manually at home, instead of operating the simpler, portable machine, Cody said.

The theft happened in a 10-minute window at the front of their home near 55th Street and Shattuck Avenue, but after talking with police, neighbors and transients at a nearby overpass, Cody said they still haven’t found the chair.

It’s not the first time someone’s targeted the family’s wheelchairs, either. Once, someone stole just the seat of Joaquin’s chair out of her husband’s truck, Cody said.

For now, Cody said her son will stay at home with her and his and 2-year-old sister as the family works to sort things out.

“I’m just hoping insurance is going to be able to replace it,” Cody said.