FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Derek Avilez is still working light duty as a firefighter despite being bound to a wheelchair.
His chair called the iBOT made life a lot easier, but he says it was lost by an airline on a recent trip and now he and his family are hoping somehow it is found soon.
The Hollywood firefighter became an incomplete C2 quadriplegic after a skim boarding accident at the beach in 2010.
“The wave hit me incorrectly and I landed straight onto my head in three feet of water,” said Avilez.
He spent six months in the ICU.
Since then, the father of three has made the best of his limited mobility.
It was a life-changing donation that made things a little easier: A high tech wheelchair called the iBOT worth more than $45,000.
It can lift him to eye-level, take him to the beach, and curbs are no problem, making travel more enjoyable.
Last month, Avilez and his family took a trip to Europe, but when they flew into Madrid, Spain, all of their luggage and the chair were missing.
“My mobility was extremely restricted. I was confined to a manual push chair,” he said.
They previously had a layover in Morocco and spotted the iBOT on the tarmac.
The vacation was very uncomfortable as they navigated through crowds.
“I slid out of the chair when we hit a pothole,” he said.
A wheel broke towards the end of the trip.
The family has had little luck getting any help from Royal Air Maroc and Iberia Airlines.
The airlines only say they are working on their requests, but it could take some time.
“That chair is basically…they need to think of it as my heart,” said Avilez. “Without that chair, I can’t do anything. Just like your heart. That is the kind of mentality that these airlines need to have.”
UPDATE: On Tuesday, June 4, the family confirmed that they received an Instagram message at 3:30 a.m. from Iberia informing them that they had found the wheelchair and their son’s luggage.