His $31,000 wheelchair had already been found, but the person who recovered it had no idea what to do with it.
Phillipe Croizon, the first quadruple amputee to swim across the English Channel, had taken to social media and European media outlets to tell the story of his electric wheelchair that was taken over the weekend while he was on vacation in northern France.
“He only called me on Monday evening to tell me about it, after watching a report on this case” on French television,” Croizon told AFP.
The man who recovered it drives a bus for handicapped people, and had kept the prized possession in a shed while trying to decide what to do with it.
Since losing all his limbs in an electrical accident in 1994, Croizon had been a competitive swimmer using special flippers. He became the first quadruple amputee to swim across the English Channel in 2010. He has also crossed the Red Sea, the Bering Strait and the Straits of Gilbatrar.
The wheelchair was a specially designed model which was partly paid for by Croizon’s family.
“It’s not just my electric wheelchair they’ve nicked,” Croizon told French daily Le Parisien on Sunday. “They also stole my independence, and without that I’m nothing.”