Mail Tribune / Jim Craven NEW CHAIR -- Dave Hassenpflug of Medford poses with his sons, Travis, 3, and Maxwell, 5.

Thief steals man's custom wheelchair MS victim awaits insurance decision By SUSAN JAY - Mail Tribune   The person who stole David Hassenpflug's, wheelchair might well have taken his legs.   Last Friday someone stole the 29-year-old's "Quicky," a $1,500 lightweight, custom wheelchair, from his sister's white minivan in Medford.   Stealing a person's wheelchair is "like taking someone's legs away," he said.   Four years ago, Hassenpflug was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease in which myelin, the substance that acts as an electrical insulator for nerve fibers, begins to degenerate in the brain and spinal cord.   Nine months ago he lost control of his legs to the disease and is unable to walk on his own.   He came from Long Beach, California, in March to stay with his family in Medford, so he could undergo alternative treatment for his MS and also so his family could help him take care of his two boys, Maxwell, 5, and Travis, 3.   While the pale, thin young man can walk around the house with his walker, he needs his wheel chair to go anywhere outside.   He and his family can't believe that someone would stoop so low as to steal his wheelchair.   "At first you're just totally appalled," he said.   His body went into uncontrollable shakes after he first learned of the theft, he said, a symptom of stress in people with MS.   "It's so obvious that to take a wheelchair, you've stolen something that makes this person's life work," said his older sister Betti Jo Taylor.   "I'm after that person," she said of the thief, because of the pain and sadness her brother felt after the theft.   He had waited more than six months for the lightweight chair and pictured having to go for months without it.   Hassenpflug has been using a new $800 wheelchair that fits him better, on loan from Total Mobility, because his sister's homeowner's insurance carrier had said they would pay for a new one.   The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Oregon chapter, has offered to pay the insurance deductible of $250.   But Tuesday, the insurance company, Oregon Mutual, said all it could find as proof of purchase was a one-month rental agreement, which isn't enough for reimbursement, said Jeanne Barbara the sister Hassenpflug is staying with and owner of the van from which the chair was stolen.   While her insurance agents are doing all they can, "I'm not sure where we stand," she said. "They can't find the paperwork that David owned the chair, and his belongings are spread out," mostly in a storage shed in Long Beach.   "It was a horrible thing for somebody to do," she said. Her brother travels frequently back and forth between Long Beach and his family in Medford, and it would lighten his plane trip to have a chair in both places, she said. Mail Tribune Copyright © The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA Back to News