A disabled Queens teen is getting a new wheelchair after hers was stolen on Christmas Day, and it’s coming from … an ex-con.
Michelle Martinez, 18, and her family have been distraught since a thief cut her special, $6,000 wheelchair’s lock and chain and swiped it from outside their Jackson Heights home. The teen is nonverbal and suffers from scoliosis and Rett syndrome.“I was devastated when the chair got stolen because that’s the only way my daughter gets around,” Michelle’s mom, Antonia Martinez, 46, told The Post.
“My daughter has not been able to leave the house. I was worried about how I was going to get her to school without the chair.”
Elevator-company owner John “Jack” O’Shea said he saw The Post’s stories about the teenager’s plight and was brought to tears.
“The whole story absolutely broke my heart,” said O’Shea, who was sentenced to two years in prison in 2012 for cheating workers out of more than $1 million in wages.
“I read about it in the newspaper … and said, ‘Well, someone’s got to help this family,’ and my wife said, ‘Why don’t we help?’ ”
On Sunday evening, O’Shea, 54, drove from his home in Westchester County to Queens to meet with the family and get the wheelchair’s specs so he can order and pay for a new one.
By Monday, he was trying to arrange to borrow a wheelchair from Montefiore Hospital in The Bronx for Michelle to use until the one he is ordering for her from a company in Rhode Island arrives.
“I feel very grateful to know that there are people with kind hearts who go out and help people in need,” the teen’s mom said.
O’Shea said he’s been doing kind acts “for years.” The Irish immigrant, who owns the company Start Elevators, actually got a break on a potential five-year prison sentence in his fraud case because the judge noted that he had a history of “charity and good deeds.’’
But he told The Post he’d “rather not speak about” his criminal past.
As for the chair theft, O’Shea said, “I’ve got no words for anyone who steals, but who steals a wheelchair, it’s just unconscionable, moreover on Christmas. It’s a terrible thing to do to that family.”
Additional reporting by Lia Eustachewich and Gabrielle Fonrouge