“Shark Tank” star Robert Herjavec may have gotten married Sunday night, but he was in no rush to whisk away on his honeymoon – instead opting to spend Monday with a 4-year-old boy who had his prosthetic leg stolen from the beach.
Herjavec threw a party for Liam Brenes, of Rancho Santa Margarita, and his family at The Saddle Ranch Chop House in West Hollywood , where Brenes was the star of the afternoon.
Liam’s story went viral after the Orange County Register first reported his prosthetic leg was stolen from Crystal Cove State Beach on July 24 during the boy’s first trip to the ocean. He and his family were enjoying the tide pools when someone took their belongings from the sand – including his “Star Wars”-decorated leg.
“There’s trolls out there … but not many,” Liam’s father Frank Brenes said Tuesday morning, still groggy from the party the day before. “Really, it’s been phenomenal. It’s meant so much to him. He could have walked away with a really negative attitude from this and been really affected. But he’s been so uplifted. Doing things like this have helped keep it that way.”
Herjavec heard about the story and offered to pay for a replacement prosthetic. Meanwhile, hundreds of people went to a fund-raising site raising more than $20,000 for the family. Michael Metichecchia of Essential Orthotics and Prosthetics in Palmdale made Liam a new leg for free.
During his star-studded party, Monday, Liam was lavished with gifts.
“It’s that important to me. If we have an opportunity to help, why wouldn’t we,” Herjavec said in an interview with ABC7 a day after he married former “Dancing with the Stars” partner Kym Johnson. “He’s such a great kid.”
Also in attendance was Metichecchia, the man who made Liam’s new prosthetic decorated with a “Ghostbusters” design, the boy’s latest obsession.
Liam also got to meet Noah Galloway, an Army veteran who lost an arm and a leg in the Iraq war and who also appeared on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Frank Brenes said his son was in awe of Galloway, who gave him a copy of his book, “Living With No Excuses.”
“His future is very bright,” Galloway said in the ABC7 report. “And he’s going to do more impressive things than I ever could have imagined I could do.”
Frank Brenes said that while the gifts meant a lot to the family, it was the time people took to spend their day with them that mattered the most.
“It was just awesome,” he said.
Contact the writer: lconnelly@ocregister.com
