Sprinter racing on mended wheelchair after gear broken on fllight MONTY MOSHER Sports Reporter Published July 2, 2015 - 6:42pm

Ryan Shay’s $6,000 custom-built chair was damaged on WestJet trip. 
 
Wheelchair sprinter Ryan Shay of Halifax will compete in the national track and field championships in Edmonton after his $6,000 custom-built racing chair was broken in transit on a WestJet flight.

The former South Shore major-midget hockey player, who was paralyzed in a car accident in 2013 near Yarmouth, will propel a makeshift chair in Edmonton thanks to Annapolis Valley racer Ben Brown. Shay’s first event was late Thursday night.

Brown, who is also competing at nationals, had a spare front fork at his home and immediately offered it to his teammate. Shay’s family was able to pick up the special delivery before leaving Halifax for Edmonton on Wednesday.

Shay, 21, put the parts together for a test run on Thursday morning, and the chair worked well enough to keep him in the race.

He said he was devastated to see his chair wrecked and has already asked to be compensated, placing additional stress on an already stressful week. He said WestJet’s first offer was $1,900.

He is competing in Edmonton in the 100, 200, and 400-metre sprints and has already met the qualifying standards for the Parapan Am Games in August in Toronto at 100 and 200 metres. However, he still has to show he’s in championship form at the nationals.

The chair was transported in a protective bag.

“It was quite awful,” Shay said of coming face to face with a chair he spent a year raising money to purchase.

“You’ve got to take things step by step and what happens happens. You’ve got to try to deal with it from there.

“There’s not much I can do for now except hope to negotiate a good deal with WestJet. Now that I’ve got a new part, I’ve got to push the best race I can push.”

He said he wasn’t angry as much as he was “rattled.”

“All the representatives try to be as sincere as they can about it. It’s not exactly their fault. It’s more the baggage handlers. But it’s pretty frustrating. It hindered me a little bit at first, but we stayed as calm as we could and made a couple of phone calls. We got things figured out and we’re back on track.”

He said the piece that is on the chair now isn’t the part that came with it, and he’ll have to return it to Brown, anyway.

“Even if the piece worked perfectly fine and I could buy it off Ben ... still the fact is they broke my chair, and it’s something they should be looking into fixing because they are responsible for what happened.”

Ueli Albert, who coaches Shay and Brown, said the chair isn’t perfect, but it goes straight. He said the fork isn’t a custom part, unlike the seat, and Brown owned the same brand of chair.

“He was lucky that it was only the fork and not the whole chair that was wrecked. I still think he can do really, really well.”

Albert said Shay was hurting when he peered into the bag to see his wrecked chair, but Brown stepped up and offered him his gear.

“He didn’t even have to ask. It was pretty awesome.”

He said it’s been a hard week for Shay, but he’s got a tough mind after all he’s been through.

“We went back to the airport and tried to make a claim and they gave him pretty much a cold shoulder,” said Albert.

“That was bothering him and then he didn’t know if he could race. So it was quite the thing. But I think we’re good.”

The WestJet media-relations department could not be immediately reached for comment