DINWIDDIE COUNTY, Va. – A community has rallied to help a woman left paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident when she was nine years old.
Takisha Blackwell said her troubles started when her mother, who was her caregiver since that fateful day almost 30 years ago, died of breast cancer in October.
In May, CBS 6 ran a story about her cry for help.
"It was a lot of people calling in, it was overwhelming but it was good,” Blackwell said.
Blackwell is confined to a wheelchair and basically to just two rooms in her house, which is a home in need of repair.
"Well, I'm a quadriplegic," Blackwell told WTVR CBS senior reporter Wayne Covil from inside her living room.
She said that in May, Petersburg firefighter LeMar Johnson came to her aid.
"He did my flooring in the kitchen, the one in the utility room and he fixed the ceiling in the master bedroom,” she said.
Blackwell is trying to keep her home together, but on a fixed income, she said it is difficult and that repairs are stacking up.
The small mobile home is not designed for her wheelchair.
Now she is trying to raise money, through a GoFundMe, to move into the master bedroom.She hopes to outfit it with a special hoist so she can finally have access to a bathroom.
"It's going to be hooked to the ceiling so you can get lifted from the bedroom, all the way into the bathroom, to the shower,” she said.
Her family understands just how important this would be for Blackwell and said it would change her quality of life.
"This means a lot to her, because once she gets in her mother’s room, she can get in the tub,” said her cousin, Saralda Roney.
Click here if you would like to donate to Blackwell's GoFundMe accountor know of someone who could help repair her home.
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