(WSVN) - A South Florida man is looking for answers after, he says, a hospital lost his prosthetic leg. The Nightteam’s Karen Hensel with her special assignment report tonight: Pain and Perseverance.
Javed Ayube (in Facebook video): “So, I came in with a prosthetic leg, and I walked out of here on crutches.”
Javed Ayube took to Facebook the day he realized his prosthetic leg was missing from a Florida hospital.
Javed Ayube (in Facebook video): “They don’t know where my leg is. They can’t find it.”
The frustration clear as he wrote “how can a hospital misplace my medical device —- where is my leg?????”
Javed Ayube (in Facebook video): “When I do call emergency, because I feel like my safety or my well being is at stake.”
Breaking down, alone, hundreds of miles from his Coconut Creek home, the 31-year-old later writing, “It has been a long rough road, pain and suffering, frustration, stress…”
Javed Ayube, says hospital lost his prosthetic leg: “Emotionally, it’s tearing me up. It’s tearing me up emotionally.”
Karen Hensel: “It’s a part of you.”
Javed Ayube: “Yes, it is.”
Weeks later, this is how we met Javed, as he hopped on one leg to a park bench to talk with us.
What ended with a lost leg started with a visit to the emergency room on March 17.
That’s the day he called 911 for help for what his hospital records show was a drug overdose.
Javed Ayube: “The papers stated it was an OD on Molly, but it was more of a ‘Hey, it’s really hot. I’m a little dehydrated.'”
Javed was only in the hospital for a few hours, but it was enough time for his leg to be lost.
Javed Ayube: “That leg is very important to my life for me to put my life in the right place and my mind in the right place.”
Javed had his leg amputated after being robbed and shot in 2012.
Javed Ayube: “These guys came and robbed me with an AR-15. It was very scary.”
He says the last time he saw the carbon fiber prosthetic leg, it was in a property bag just outside his hospital room.
Javed Ayube: “Everything is in the bag. There’s a leg. There’s a foot. There’s everything in that bag.”
With the prosthetic leg missing, he left on crutches and says he called the hospital repeatedly.
Javed Ayube: “The lady says she looked in their lockers and couldn’t find it, didn’t know where it was at — that maybe security had it.”
Javed filed a police report saying: “… No one in the hospital could locate his prosthetic leg” that had the Nike logo “Just Do It.”
He is learning not only how to walk again, but how to ride a bike again — his main transportation.
Javed Ayube: “When I peddle once, for some reason it gets back up, and I peddle again and keep on pushing.”
But then, another setback — being told medicaid would not cover the cost of a new leg.
Javed Ayube: “It’s just going to make me stronger in the end because I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to sit in a wheelchair.”
But, he still has questions about what happened to the missing prosthetic leg.
Javed Ayube: “Whoever grabbed ahold of it didn’t put it in a safe place, or they might have just walked out of the hospital with it.”
Just like Javed Ayube made repeated attempts with the hospital to find answers, so did we. Their response back to us? “We are unable to assist.”
Javed Ayube: “Physically, I’m drained. I am physically drained, but I can’t let up, you know? I can’t let up until I get that leg.”
Javed kept fighting, and in the end Medicaid agreed to replace the prosthetic leg.
Here he is being fitted for it, and these are Javed’s first steps with his new leg.
Javed Ayube: “Maybe it’s just to see what I can actually do with my life. Will I sit down and ‘pity oh me?’ Or will I keep on fighting?”
Javed is fighting everyday to “Just Do It.”
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