SARASOTA – One man’s truck is stolen right outside his home in Sarasota, but it was the materials inside the truck that were irreplaceable.
Robert Berry has been a rowing coach for the past 10 years. He recently moved to Sarasota to work at Nathan Benderson Park and coach rowers who are deaf or blind. But his truck carrying his equipment was stolen in the dead of night.
“It’s not just your average truck it had all these other things in it and I have a trailer that’s my workshop that I pull with it,” said Berry.
Berry had developed a unique system that allows blind rowers to row independently without the extra weight of another person helping them steer. It was pieces of the remote controlled coxswain that were in the truck when it was stolen.
“The sliding seats that belong to this boat were in the truck so that was missing, and this transmitter and the receiver part were also in the truck and they were missing,” said Berry. “So our next practice was on Wednesday morning and we had to postpone that.”
Berry had customized a rowing boat for a blind couple that allows him to steer them in the right direction without even having to be on the boat. The stolen pieces put a halt on their practice time but also had Berry lose his faith in humanity.
“I wasn’t getting many results from a lot of people,” he said. “No return phone calls and you just kinda get discouraged it seems like nobody really cared about this.”
But luckily for Berry a Charlotte County deputy spotted his truck in Port Charlotte and delivered the good news to him.
“They really created a snowball effect by taking that truck I know they didn’t realize what was in there and for every action is a reaction and that was a big one,” said Berry.
And later this week SNN will introduce to you to the blind couple that is practicing to compete in the World and National Championship Dragon Boat Regatta. For more information on Berry’s innovative device visit remotecoxswain.com