Alert Penticton pawnbroker locates stolen diagnostic item, returns it to hospital

PENTICTON – A diagnostic instrument which mysteriously disappeared from Penticton Regional Hospital last month has been returned due to the goodwill of a Penticton shopkeeper.

Police Cpl. Don Wrigglesworth had been into Quick N Easy Pawnbrokers last month and had shown him a photo of a 'slit lamp' which had been taken from the Penticton Hospital’s emergency ward.

“It looked kind of like binoculars. I was down at the bowling alley Friday night, and I heard some people talking about these bizarre binoculars this guy was trying to sell, so I thought I would go out and see if they looked familiar,” pawn shop owner Darren Hafftor says.

He went out in the parking lot, and realized they looked a lot like the missing slit lamp in the photo he’d been shown by Wrigglesworth. He asked what the man wanted for them.

“I knew they really weren’t useful for anything but that machine, so I thought I’d make a pitch for them. if I could get them cheap enough, I thought I’d be saving the hospital some money, because I’d been told they were worth $6,000,” he says.

He gave the man some money, got the items and took them to the hospital.

“I think that’s what they are, based on the photo Wrigglesworth showed me,” he says, adding the guy said they were for sighting guns. "Although they looked like binoculars, you couldn’t see much through them."

Interior Health Communications Officer Tara Gostelow says the missing slit lens has been returned to the hospital, but has been sent away for examination prior to being used to ensure it is still in good working order.

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