REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Tuesday August 31, 2004

PERRY Cross could have been dead in 15 minutes after a couple stole a machine that helped keep him alive.

A quadriplegic after suffering a broken neck during a rugby match 10 years earlier, Mr Cross watched helplessly as a man and woman opened the unlocked passenger door of his van and grabbed the suction machine from the front seat.

He was waiting for his carer to return and had been sitting in his wheelchair in the rear of the Toyota Hiace, parked at the Sorrento shops on August 25, 2003.

All Mr Cross could do was ask, ‘what are you doing?’ before the couple got back into their red sedan, parked next to Perry’s van, and drove off.

The man accused of stealing the suction machine fronted the Southport Magistrates Court.

The device, worth thousands of dollars, was used to drain fluid from his lungs.

”Without it, I’d be stuffed,” said Mr Cross, who lives at Southport.

“You’d never think anyone would take it, just taking advantage of someone in a wheelchair. They knew I wouldn’t be able to react.’’

Mr Cross’s carer, Kyron Rathbone, told the court the device was part of Mr Cross’s life-support equipment and after it was stolen, he drove him to the Gold Coast Hospital for urgent treatment.

”He can’t clear his lungs himself, of any phlegm,’’ said Mr Rathbone, then-24.

”If Perry was in need of suction and didn’t have it within 15 minutes he could stop breathing.’’