Thieves steal, mangle and sell for scrap wheelchairs used by disabled Syracuse athletes

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Bob Prenoveau still remembers the first time he played wheelchair basketball more than 40 years ago.

Finally, he was no longer the kid watching.

“It was amazing,” Prenoveau, now 57, says. At 14, he became a part of the Syracuse Flyers wheelchair basketball team. The game is made possible by a special wheelchair, with wheels tipped inward at 15 degrees and other modifications. Prenoveau had no idea such a thing existed.

That’s why it was so hard to look at the photograph of the remains of 15 basketball wheelchairs that had been mangled and sold for scrap.

A photo of what was left of Move Along's trailer full of basketball wheelchairs after they were stolen. Most of them were broken down and sold for scrap.

The chairs belonged to Move Along Inc., the nonprofit group that the Syracuse Flyers evolved into over the past decades. Move Along provides specialized wheelchairs for basketball, curling, golf, pickleball and tennis. They also have special adaptive sleds for playing hockey, and adaptive kayaks.

The basketball wheelchairs cost as much as $3,600 each, putting the loss at close to $50,000. The group’s budget was just $25,000 last year. Move Along had insurance on the chairs, but it won’t cover the entire replacement cost, said Mike Smithson, president of the group and a disabled athlete.

Tom Newton, a spokesman for the Onondaga County Sheriff’s office, said the theft is still being investigated by detectives.

It happened sometime in late January, Smithson guesses. Move Along stored its three trailers full of equipment on a parking lot in an industrial site outside of Syracuse, Smithson said. The winter months are slow for the group, so he went to check on the trailers in February when he saw that one was missing. Two of them had the organization’s logo and name on them. The one that was stolen did not, he said.

The missing trailer was so baffling that for a minute Smithson wondered if he’d parked it somewhere else and forgotten. Afterall, who would steal a trailer full of wheelchairs?

The trailer was discovered, painted brown and without its wheels, just a few days after Smithson reported it stolen. Detectives are still tracking down the culprits.

Students from Phoenix High School try wheelchair basketball with chairs provided by Move Along. The organization recently had several chairs stolen (Photo by Seth Gitner)

They likely thought the trailer was full of some kind of construction equipment that could be easily sold. When they found the wheelchairs, instead, they broke them down into smaller parts, so they would not be recognized as wheelchairs, and took the metal to Ben Weitsman of Syracuse scrapyard, said Newton, of the sheriff’s office.

For now, Smithson said, the group is trying to borrow chairs from other organizations around Central New York to try to do the events that had already been planned. Move Along is taking donations through its website to help buy new chairs.

Smithson became partially paralyzed following a stroke in 2014. He struggled to adapt to his body’s limits. “I was in a bad place,” Smithson said.

Then he found Move Along. The sport that helped him turn the corner was sled hockey, he said.

In that sport, disabled athletes use sleds to maneuver on the ice instead of skates. Smithson also competed in the Boiler Maker using a special racing wheelchair he borrowed from Prenoveau. Smithson placed well enough to win his own racing wheelchair.

“I wasn’t stuck anymore,” Smithson said.

The options keep expanding. There are wheelchairs for tennis, pickleball and golf, too.

Smithson said the organization doesn’t charge disabled athletes for the equipment; they just want people to use it.

“I can’t tell you how many fannies have been in those chairs,” he said. The number is well into the thousands.

Smithson wants the kid who sits at the window, watching their friends go off to play baseball or basketball, to know that they can play, too.

“These chairs enable the person to suddenly do what they wanted to do and be free of this thought, ‘I can’t’,” Smithson said.

Marnie Eisenstadt writes about people and public affairs in Central New York. Contact her anytime email | cell 315-470-2246.