A Waterloo Region man is pleading for the public’s help after a specially equipped wheelchair accessible van was stolen from his parents’ driveway over the weekend. According to Keenan O’Donoghue, his family’s 2015 Toyota Sienna was in his parents’ driveway in Kitchener on Friday night, but by the morning it was nowhere to be found. “My parents, they arrived back home from a night out, and the van was still intact when they came home, which was around 12:30. And then it was taken,” O’Donoghue said. O’Donoghue filed a police report the next day and Waterloo Regional Police are now investigating. He said nearby cameras showed some movement around one in the morning, but so far he has no idea where the vehicle went. “This is everything to me in terms of being able to go to appointments, do things for school, do things for work, like it’s been a real big impact,” O’Donoghue said. The vehicle is a wheelchair accessible van that his family purchased from a family friend after a few years of searching. His family uses it to help him get around. “I have my license with hand controls, and this vehicle was special in the sense that I could get my wheelchair into the driver’s seat of the vehicle, which is not particularly common with accessible vehicles,” O’Donoghue said. Since Saturday, the 29-year-old has been doing his schoolwork and job from his parents’ home. He’s hoping someone has seen it, but he’s looking at all options. “It is not easy, and it’s going to take some time to find a vehicle for purchase. We’re hopeful we get a rental within the next couple of weeks or so,” O’Donoghue said. Modifying a vehilce like that isn’t cheap, according to KW AccessAbility. “To fully modify a vehicle for someone like myself would probably be between $25,000 and $50,000 on top of the price of the vehicle. And you can’t put it into a used vehicle. It has to be a brand new vehicle. So, we’re talking a lot of money that people sometimes save up a lifetime for, just to have that,” said Edward Faruzel, executive eirector of KW AccessAbility. In the meantime, O’Donoghue is looking for a temporary workaround. “We’re in the process of trying to get a rental vehicle. While we kind of deal with this situation. Unfortunately, it’s kind of hard to find vehicles of this type, because accessible vehicles tend to stay with their owners for a long amount of time,” O’Donoghue said. KW AccessAbility’s executive director said people with disabilities often have more doctors appointments and things that come up on short notice out of town, and having a way to get there could save their life. “There’s really no value to anyone else, just the person that it was made for,” Faruzel said. O’Donoghue said it is everything to him. “I like to be as independent as possible, have my own job, have my own place, eventually have my own family. So, a vehicle is always going to be important to that,” O’Donoghue said.
