After a sleepless night Sunday, 12-year-old Donavin Grueszewski was reunited with his battery-powered wheelchair yesterday afternoon in Mount Oliver.
Bob Donaldson, Post-GazetteDonavin Grueszewski, 12, gets help from his sister Jolin as he reclaims his motorized wheelchair yesterday afternoon.
Click photo for larger image.
"I can't believe it. This is the greatest day of my life," Donavin beamed when he laid eyes on his blue chair.
Donavin's chair went missing Saturday night from the front porch of a friend's house on Ormsby Avenue. Donavin, his mother Janiece, and two siblings have been staying there after a July 6 fire made their house unlivable. Donavin has cerebral palsy and is unable to walk on his own.
Late Sunday, Gary Reichert, 43, spotted the chair outside his Walnut Street duplex, about four blocks from where the Grueszewskis are staying. The chair was left on the sidewalk for Monday's trash pickup.
Mr. Reichert, who has spina bifida, realized that someone would be missing that chair so he brought it up next to his house. "I didn't want anybody else to take it, and I was keeping an eye on it all night."
After reading about Donavin in yesterday's Post-Gazette, he contacted the paper. Early yesterday afternoon, with his stepsister Jolynn helping him stand, Donavin personally showed Mr. Reichert his gratitude with a handshake.
"I want to thank everybody for their help," he said.
The wheelchair had a dead battery, and there was other slight damage to the hand control and a belt, but Donavin greeted it like an old friend. He was particularly pleased that his four Special Olympics medals were still there.
"I worked very hard for those," he said. "I kind of thought they were going to get lost."
More than 75 readers contacted the Post-Gazette in response to yesterday's story to ask if they could help. Several offered to donate wheelchairs they no longer used.
Christine Alkhuzai, a family friend who has helped coordinate aid for the family, said one man called and offered to buy Donavin a new chair that day.
"For such a bad thing to happen, people really responded with something positive."
Ms. Grueszewski has been looking for a place to rent as she tries to resolve a dispute with her insurance company about coverage of their losses, which include nearly all of their clothing. Finding the chair, she said, "is the most positive thing that's happened since the fire."
Friends intend to set up a bank account for the Grueszewskis in the next day or so. Meanwhile, people wishing to make donations for the family can contact Mrs. Alkhuzai at ALKHUZ4@aol.com.
First Published: July 31, 2007, 3:15 a.m.