THIEVES nicked a disabled pensioner’s mobility trolley after he was taken to hospital for a nasty fall, thanks to police who refused to let a good samaritan look after it.

Michael McCarthy suffers from poor balance and collapsed outside Nick’s Place on the Cappuccino Strip two Fridays ago, badly cutting his head.

Passerby Gillian Street had just completed a first aid course, so she stepped in and patched him up until the ambulance came to take him to Fiona Stanley Hospital.

“It was a very bad fall, there was blood everywhere,” Ms Street told the Herald.

When he’d been carted off, she told police who’d arrived that she’d look after his trolley until she could get it back to him.

• Thieves stole Michael McCarthy’s mobility trolley.

Ms Street says she was gobsmacked when they refused to let her take it, instead ordering her to leave it in an alleyway behind the shop.

“I told them I thought it would be stolen, but the officer said ‘who would want to steal that, we’ve checked it and it’s full of old rags and bottles’,” Ms Street said. The police didn’t elaborate on why they thought the articulate and well-dressed Ms Street might want to nick it herself.

“It made it feel like it was wrong to try and help your fellow man,” she says.

She also wants St John’s Ambulance to introduce a policy that disabled people’s transport is taken along if there’s an emergency.

Mr McCarthy said when he went back a couple of days later, a shop owner said they’d seen a couple of hoons who’d been drinking taking off with his trolley later that night.

He’s been loaned a replacement but says he can’t afford a new one and would like the old one back. It’s blue and is distinctive because it has two crates attached.

Anyone who’s seen it can give the Chook a call – anonymously if necessary.

by STEVE GRANT