A package thief was caught on camera making off with $40,000 of chemotherapy medication for a 14-year-old.
Gage Haynes was diagnosed with cancer at six-months old, and has been in some form of treatment ever since.
"I have Systemic Mastocytosis. It's a rare form of cancer and it’s just been happening my whole life, so I'm used to it. Now, we've finally found a way to help it. My whole life there's really been nothing,” he told a reporter at 10TV in Vegas.
The medicine that finally helped him costs $40,000 a month, and it isn’t covered by insurance. Instead his mother, Staci Shavinsky, used crowdsourcing to raise the money that would save her son.
"I worked really hard to try and get him that” Shavinsky told reporters. “I did some financial assistance because… it's not FDA approved for anybody under the age of 18.”
A photo released on February 12 shows a man wearing sunglasses, a red plaid shirt and a red baseball cap, making off with the packages that contained Haynes’ medicine.
Now Shavinsky and Haynes are working with the police and a pharmaceutical company in addition to calling for the thief to return the medication.
"It really helps me out a lot. I would feel a lot better, so I can go to school, get good grades, get a good job, so just please return it,” said Haynes.
“You're not just taking a pair of pants or a shirt,” his mother reiterated. “You're taking something that's keeping someone alive.”
