Get Ella a wheelchair that works

Back in 2015 generous people bought me an electric wheelchair when I needed it most. But that chair is now worn out and getting increasingly unreliable to the point that I just don’t trust it enough to go out in it. I have had to pay for a new controller and new batteries costing hundreds of pounds in the last 2 years, but it still doesn’t hold a charge and has a fraction of the range it should. It is frequently flashing battery empty warnings at the end of short walks with my wife. It doesn’t even recharge every time I plug it in, sometimes it is ready and sometimes the battery is still empty. The circuit board in the controller keeps falling out of place, although I have attempted to repair this with blu tac. The battery case is worn and keeps jolting and disconnecting. It is terrifying when it gets bumped as I enter a road and the wheelchair cuts out with all the lights flashing in error, and it refuses to restart as traffic heads toward me. The wheelchair also takes a lot of space. We live in a one bedroom flat and have nowhere to store it, so I have to keep it parked in the kitchen, blocking access to a cupboard we keep food in.

I recently tried tried a new electric wheelchair at Naidex. It has a lightweight lithium battery instead of heavy lead! It folds up and splits in half for storage and can fit in a smaller car! There’s a luggage rack available to carry bags! An option for extra batteries! And a cup holder! And it’s hackable for extra speed! It has a USB charging socket for my phone! This chair would change my life for the better. It would let me go on trips again with my wife, allow her to load it into the car much more easily, (she has her own injuries following her motorbike accident in 2015) and allow more choices for my next Motability car lease. We would no longer have a wheelchair taking up a large chunk of our kitchen and have to move it every time we need to get to the cupboard. The battery wouldn’t be empty every time I want to go out.

This chair and luggage rack comes to around £3000, plus there are fees for gofundme and processing. I will be extremely grateful for every donation, although please don’t donate if you can’t afford to! I would prefer you look after yourself first.