It's A Detroit Miracle: $10,000 Worth Of Gear, Rio Swag Stolen From Olympic Sailor Recovered On East Side [VIDEO]

DETROIT (WWJ) - A bag of custom sailing gear that was stolen from outside the east side home of a Detroit Olympian has been recovered, thanks to a gold-medal Good Samaritan.

Bora Gulari, a member of the U.S. sailing team who has lived in Detroit for almost 10 years, returned from Rio Tuesday night to a not so inviting homecoming -- someone stole $10,000 worth of customized sailing equipment and Olympic memorabilia from the back of his truck.

Gulari noticed the theft Wednesday morning when he went to Bayview Yacht Club to assemble one of his boats for a sail.

"The bag with all the gear from Rio wasn't there," Gulari told WWJ's Scott Ryan. "I drove back to the house thinking maybe I took it out and just wasn't thinking, because I just traveled a really long ways and was really tired, and it wasn't there. We saw what looked like wheel marks in the neighbor's yard, so I finally put two and two together that it was stolen out of the back of the truck."

The Olympian posted signs across his neighborhood hoping someone would recognize his large, red rolling suitcase, and also contacted a friend at WDIV-TV, which ran a story on the stolen items. Then on Thursday morning, Gulari got a phone call.

"This lady Sylvia had found all the stuff in her yard the day before when paramedics were looking at it and basically didn't know what it was," he said. "One of her friends or Slyvia herself saw the little thing on Channel 4 and the next thing you know, we got the call."

Gulari had somewhat reserved hopes about what would be left of his belongings, which were located near Mack and East Warren avenues under a group of pine trees, but he never expected what he found.

"Literally the only things gone are a cheap cellphone that I don't care about and I had three pairs of obnoxious Oakley sunglasses that were red, white and blue that I designed myself and they took those," he said. "(The glasses) are almost too loud, so, I mean, if they want to wear the stars and stripes spinnaker glasses, then who cares."

All of his gear was practically untouched. "Whoever it was was probably like 'What is this stuff,'" he joked.

The thief even left his Olympic memorabilia.

"There was a cool Olympic comforter that had all the sports on it and the Rio logo, I mean in reality it's worth nothing but at the same time it's kind of priceless. It's kind of a cool thing that you're never going to get," he said. "I also had my competition pinning, which goes over my life-jacket, it says U.S.A. and has the Olympic rings on it."

Gulari said he is now treating the woman who found his bag to a nice dinner and a night on the town.

"I'll definitely make sure she gets some Team U.S.A. gear, too," he said.

The Good Samaritan, Sylvia Inwood, said she found the bag after a pair of paramedics raised her suspicion.

"I looked out the window and just saw that they were looking at the ground and I thought 'What if there's a body out there? What are they looking at,'" Inwood told WWJ's Vickie Thomas. "And so I came out and, thank goodness it wasn't a body, but there was just a massive amount of stuff strewn along the grass."

Inwood said she collected the items and put the bag in her garage, until she learned about Gulari's situation and called the number on the fliers he posted. She called it a case of paying it forward.