Who would steal a wheelchair?

Paula Goodwin would like to know, because it happened to her late last month when she went to the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City with a friend.

"I would have never thought anybody would take a wheelchair. Who is that low to steal a wheelchair?" said Goodwin, sitting on a couch in her South Haven home with her right leg in a brace.

Technically, the woman spotted in the casino's surveillance video traded up, leaving behind a bright blue wheelchair with breaks that don't work and wheels that don't turn for Goodwin's larger, hunter green model that was new and fully functioning.

It's like trading a Pinto for a Cadillac, Goodwin, 57, said.

"There are a lot of elderly people who come to the casino so we have things like this happen, but not often," said Mike Janiczak, the Indiana Gaming Commission's supervisor for the Michigan City casino.

In February, Goodwin fell on the ice at her parents' Portage home and broke her right leg in two places. Doctors couldn't put her in a cast so they gave her a brace, with strict orders not to put weight on her leg or drive.

Since then, her mom, Jean Brutout, has been staying with her during the week and driving Goodwin to her nearby job at Fabricated Metals, where she's office manager.

Goodwin has a wheelchair on loan from the American Legion at work and her parents, who purchased a new, $300 wheelchair to have on hand just in case they needed it, let Goodwin use that one at home. The wheelchair is a walker/wheelchair combo in a way, with a padded shelf seat, though it can be pushed like a traditional wheelchair.

Just when Goodwin was beginning to feel stir crazy, a friend of hers from Valparaiso, Patty Rarity, offered to pick her up and take her to the Blue Chip. The two figured they'd hit the buffet and try their luck at the slot machines.

On the afternoon of April 25, they headed out. They decided to check out the penny slots in the back of the casino, and took seats at two adjacent machines. Goodwin's wheelchair was close by.

"It was right behind both of our chairs. No one could have mistaken it for anything but ours," she said. "I had my arm on the rail, and Patty had her foot on the bottom."

Then Rarity hit $637 on her slot machine. That's when the real excitement began.

"It was ding-ding-dinging and we were really excited. We weren't watching," Goodwin said, adding she took her arm off her wheelchair.

She hit the "cash out" button on Rarity's machine.

"We turned around and my wheelchair was gone. We looked all over but there was nobody around," she said, adding they were sitting in a row of six slot machines. "The blue one was sitting at the end, and it was sitting all by itself."

Because Goodwin couldn't walk, Rarity grabbed the rickety blue wheelchair for her and they headed to the security office.

"When I went up to security, the guy thought I was crazy," Goodwin said.

Security officials couldn't understand how Goodwin could say her wheelchair was stolen when she was clearly using one, and pointed out that she must have taken someone else's wheelchair.

"I said this is not my wheelchair. Mine is hunter green and my brakes work and my wheels work," she said.

While Goodwin and Rarity waited, security officials viewed a surveillance video of the row of penny slots where they were sitting. The video, Goodwin said, showed two women at the far end of the row of slot machines.

Seat by seat, one of the women moved closer to Goodwin and Rarity, until she was sitting next to Rarity. Rarity then hit the jackpot and then the woman took the wheelchair, leaving her old one behind.

"They saw her. They have her face on video," Goodwin said.

Video surveillance showed her getting on a bus for Detroit – a bus with no passenger manifest. She also didn't use a player's card, so security couldn't identify her that way, Janiczak confirmed.

"When it's that kind of vague information, it's really hard to follow up," he said, adding if authorities can identify someone in a surveillance video, they can contact that person and see if the problem can be resolved, though that's not likely in this case.

"So that was the end of it. They had nothing else to go by," Goodwin said. "They said if she came back to the casino they could get her, but it was like, 'Oh, well, you're out a wheelchair.'"

Goodwin's insurance deductible is $500 and, with mounting medical bills, she can't afford to buy another wheelchair. She's been making do at home with a traditional walker, hopping on her good leg, though her doctor recently told her she could start putting some weight on the broken one.

She hasn't had contact with the Blue Chip since her wheelchair was stolen. Officials told Goodwin they would continue looking into it but she said, "three months from now, I will just be another person who got ripped off."

Sometimes security officials at the casino get a break, and there's still at least a chance that could happen if someone comes forward.

"Once in a while, especially with older people, somebody will call the casino and say they brought the wrong wheelchair home, but we haven't gotten that far with this yet," Janiczak said. "Most of the time we're able to follow up with something, but sometimes, it's a complete dead end."

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter.

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