Customized wheelchair and modified car stolen from southeast Calgary parkade

A disabled Calgary basketball player is pleading for the return of a customized wheelchair left inside his car that was stolen from his Inglewood residence last week. 

The car is a 2006 Dodge Magnum RT with Alberta plate BVH-0737. It has brakes and gas pedals mounted near the steering wheel.

Stolen along with the car was a customized wheelchair that Dalten Campbell uses to play basketball. He left it in the car as he uses it to train daily and has another chair for when he's off the court. 

Campbell told The Homestretch he parked his car in its usual spot on Friday night and it was missing when he went to leave for an event at the Repsol Centre on Saturday morning.

"It hit me like a ton of bricks that somebody had stolen my car and, in the process, stole my basketball chair, which is like a specially designed shoe, essentially," he said. "It's customized down to the centimetre for different measurements on my body. It would be essentially useless to anybody else but me."

The timing of the theft couldn't be worse for Campbell, who is trying out for a spot on the Canadian Paralympic Basketball team at the end of July, something he's been working toward for the past two years.

"I expected to have a chance to go out and showcase my skill and show that for my classification and my position on the court. I have the potential to vie for a spot on the team," he said. "It's been years of hard work. From where I started to where I am in now, it's night and day."

It takes months for a custom wheelchair to be constructed, which makes getting a replacement made in time impossible, said Campbell. Instead, he'll have to borrow one, which could affect his performance at the tryout.

"In order for me to play and earn a spot on the team, I'm pushing against the other highest level athletes … without my chair, it's a daunting task," he said. "I can still train in the gym, in the weight room. I can still train cardiovascular, I use a hand-cycle for climbing big hills. But the best training for wheelchair basketball is pushing your basketball chair. I need to be in my chair shooting, I need to be moving the chair, doing certain drills that translate into chair skills, which is the biggest part of wheelchair basketball."

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of either the car or the wheelchair is asked to call the Calgary Police Service at 403-266-1234 or to contact Crime Stoppers.

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