WATCH: The Baker Family received a surprise they won’t soon forget , thanks to the generosity of some CHEK News viewers. Ceilidh Millar reports.
Neil Baker began to lose his mobility and speech to muscular disease during his teenage years.
Now at age 31, the Saanich man is confined to a wheelchair and relies entirely on a respiratory device to breath.
Almost as life-saving as his machine, was a generator kept an arms reach away from Neil’s bedroom ? at their home on Ker Avenue in Saanich.
The family was shocked to discover the generator had been stolen from outside their property on Tuesday night.
“I can’t imagine anybody taking somebody’s life support like that,” explained Neil’s cousin, Kevin Carrigan in an interview with CHEK News on Thursday.
The generator acted as a backup power source for his respirator in the event of an outage.
Neil can only breath on his own for up to two minutes without it.
“If they had any inclination of the significance of that piece of equipment [I hope] they would return it,” Carrigan said.
Thanks to the generosity of our CHEK News viewers, the Baker Family received a gift they won’t soon forget.
Paul Dorman and Ann-Marie Benoit from Nanaimo delivered a brand new generator on Saturday.
“I was watching TV the other night and saw the story,” Dorman said. “We went to Home Depot, and with Home Depot Nanaimo’s help they chipped in with us to buy a generator.”
“It really got me in the heart,” explained Benoit. “He’s a young man. I thought like, well, someone stole his generator so we’re going to get him one.”
The pair collected money from the community through their emergency fundraising organization ‘We Can Help.’
The Baker Family says they’re in awe of the overwhelming support and kindness from the community.
“It’s given us a great sense of community,” Carrigan said.
Ceilidh Millar
