Young woman whose wheelchair motor was stolen in Malaga: 'They have robbed me of the little independence I had'

Twenty-seven-year-old María José Ortiz from Malaga suffers from a spinal cord injury that prevents her from walking and also affects the movement of her hands. A traffic accident left her paralysed and since then she has needed a wheelchair with a special motor to get around. Last week, someone stole it from her garage. "What little independence I had has been taken away from me," she said.

María José had gone to her village, El Burgo, to spend the weekend with her family in July 2019 when she was 21. In the evening she went out with some friends and in the early hours of the morning they decided to continue on to neighbouring Yunquera, just nine kilometres away.

María José only remembers a few details of the accident. She was in the back seat, with one of her friends driving and the other in the passenger seat. "For me, the party had just begun," she said.

Her companions were practically unharmed, but she was seriously injured. She was taken to the hospital in Ronda and from there, by air ambulance, to the Hospital Regional in Malaga city, where she was admitted directly to the intensive care unit. She remained in an induced coma for five days. "I turned 22 in the ICU," she explained.

At the time, María José was working in a mobile phone accessories shop and doing a vocational training course in care. "It seems that destiny had already prepared for me," she now jokes. She was referred from the Regional hospital to the national paraplegic hospital in Toledo to treat her spinal cord injury and begin rehabilitation.

María José's injury is permanent. She damaged her cervical area at C4, but the inflammation went down and reached C6. "I will need a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I can't move my legs and in my arms I have hardly any triceps and I am not able to squeeze my hands or use my fingers."

The first part of the process was coming to terms with the diagnosis. "I was in shock, I didn't understand what was happening to me, why it was happening to me. It's something you don't get over, but you have to accept it and live with it. You have to relearn everything with new difficulties and many obstacles. But you just have to show courage, because in reality life has given you another chance."

Her older sister and her mother both left their respective jobs and set about adapting to the new family situation. Then on Tuesday 22 July the family found that María José's wheelchair motor had been stolen. "I had just got out of the car in the garage of my house in Carranque. My mother took the battery out of the chair, left it by the door, on the inside and helped me get in. She put my computer on the table and went back to close the garage," María explained.

The garage has direct access to the house. When her mother returned to close the door, she found that the device was gone. "It was gone in less than a minute. It had to be someone who already had their eye on it or who passed by and stopped at a traffic light, but they had to load it into a car because it weighs almost 14 kilos."

It is the battery of the motor that propels the wheelchair. Its commercial name is Batec Mobility and it costs about 5,000 euros. "It is a special part for a wheelchair. As I can't move the handlebars, I need this adapted kit," she explained.

María José does not know what the market for such an item is. What she does know is the situation it has left her in and that is why she wants to make an appeal through SUR to get it back. "Whoever it was is not aware of what they have done to me. I can't move. Whoever has it, please give it back to me. It is my arms and legs. They have robbed me of what little independence I have. I hope they will show some compassion."