East Sussex man paralysed from the waist down looking to raise money for £25,000 wheelchair
Barry West is paralysed from the neck down and is bound to a wheelchair that can only drive on concrete. This prevents him from watching his son Harrison play football or spend time in the woods.
Lorraine said: “With his current wheelchair Barry can only go on the roads. It’s not strong enough to go on the fields or things like that.
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Hide Ad“Harrison is now seven and he wants to go in the woods and play football in the park. He wants Barry to come and join him but he can’t do that at the moment. He is always sitting on the side-line on the hard concrete watching everybody else, because he can’t do things like that.”
When he was nineteen, Barry swerved into a tree with his car to avoid hitting a badger. The impact broke his neck sideways, severing his spinal chord and C45 completely.
Lorraine wants to buy her husband the MAGIC 360. An electric power chair for everyday use that has off-road capability.
She said: “The wheelchair services only give you a basic chair. They just give you an every day chair. If you want something that is a bit more powerful to enable you to do other things, you have to pay for it yourself.
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Hide Ad“It’s a lot of money, the chair itself is £13,000. But because Barry only has the use of his head, you start adding on the bits he needs to control it because he drives it with his chin.”
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Barry, who will also become a grandad this summer, is a renowned mouth painter and will be auctioning off some of his pieces to raise money later this year.
Lorraine said: “I want to thank everybody that has helped us so far. It’s very important for getting him out properly and for our mental health as well.
"As you can imagine these chairs are a lot of money so I'm hoping with everyone's help and some other fundraising we can make this dream possible for him.”
To donate to the cause click here