Kyle McInnis knows the sickening feeling that comes when tools are stolen.
“You’re helpless,” said Kyle McInnis of Timbermen Plumbing and a former player on the Nanaimo Timbermen Lacrosse Team.
“You feel like you can’t do anything.”
When the Nanaimo plumber heard of Nanaimo resident Dennis Hyland losing every last one of his tools in a brazen daylight theft of his rolling toolbox, he knew he had to help.
“It was devastating,” said Hyland, a property management worker.
“Like oh no my whole job, my whole life is gone.”
“We were just looking at getting the guy going again,” said McInnis.
Hyland’s wife posted online what had happened, and described that while Hyland was maintaining properties on Nanaimo’s Richard’s Street last Wednesday, his toolbox and all his tools were stolen out of the back of his truck.
“He was just distraught pacing the house,” said Hyland’s wife Karolyn Harvey.
“When he came home he didn’t know what to do.”
The couple had recently moved back to Nanaimo from Prince George and McInnis said learning that, the theft hit him especially hard. So he mobilized to make it right and rallied his Nanaimo Timbermen Senior B Lacrosse team together.
“The veterans stepped up, and then the rookies started stepping up,” said McInnis.
“And our management started stepping up.”
Players donated tools of their own, and funds to get the hard-working dad back to work. The Home Hardware at Brooks Landing offered tools at cost and on Monday McInnis delivered them all to Hyland’s utter amazement.
“It’s just amazing that someone with that big of heart will go out and help,” said Hyland.
“And when he pulled into our yard, I was just stunned,” said Harvey.
“I cried when he flipped that door open. I ran in the house [said] ‘look what he brought your daddy.’ It was just amazing.”
“She immediately started crying,” said McInnis.
“And she asked if she could hug me and I said yes.
Hyland was able to work Tuesday, thanks to his new gift of tools, but still hopes that his tools, many of which were gifts from his father, will still be recovered.
Skye Ryan
