Banbury woman sets up donation page after her wheelchair was stolen from outside home

Joanne Sammons had her wheelchair taken from outside her home last month.

A Banbury woman has created a donation page to buy a replacement power wheelchair after hers was stolen from outside her house.

Joanne Sammons, who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and suffers from chronic pain and fatigue, left her electric wheelchair on her driveway at the front of her house while she set up a new one that had been delivered to her home on Springfield Avenue on Tuesday October 17.

Unfortunately for Joanne, the new wheelchair proved to be unsuitable and dangerous to use on slopes and uneven road surfaces, so she had to revert back to her old one, but the old wheelchair was no longer where it had been left hours earlier.

Joanne said: “Initially, I thought it was an honest mistake because it was behind a skip on my drive and someone may have thought it was scrap.

Joanne works as a dog socialiser for the charity Dogs for Good.

“I put a post up on the Banbury community Facebook pages but didn’t get any responses, and that’s when it hit me that it had probably been stolen.”

Thankfully, the company which Joanne purchased her new wheelchair has refunded her, and Shire Mobility in town has kindly lent her a wheelchair while she raises money for a permanent chair.

Joanne needs a wheelchair to be able to take her children to and from school and also for her job, which involves training care dogs to be sociable.

The chair recommended for Joanne costs between £4,000 and £6,000, and with the NHS only able to provide her with around £200 due to her rare condition and the £2,000 refund from the unsuitable chair, Joanne must raise the remaining funds herself.

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She said: “Having a good chair means I can leave the house without risking injuring myself and putting myself in a position where I can’t move for a week and rely on painkillers.

"There are loads of reasons why the chair is important to me, but wheelchair service say I only qualify for a manual chair because they expect me to be pushed around, but I don’t have anyone who can do that for me.

"This chair is my independence, I really needed to set up this GoFundMe, because I’m on disability benefits and times are tough with the cost of living crisis.”

To donate to Joanne’s replacement electric wheelchair fund, visit gofundme.com/f/a-replacement-power-wheelchair.