A WHOPPING £80,000 has been raised in just ten months, enabling a 34-year-old woman to walk again.

Lucy Dodd has been fundraising for almost a year for ReWalk Exoskeleton Legs, after being left paralysed from the waist down and with no feeling in her left side following surgery to remove a spinal arteriovenous malformation.

She was diagnosed with the rare condition just two days before Christmas in 2002, aged just 18, and forced to leave university.

The condition meant Lucy had an abnormal tangle of blood vessels on her spinal cord, and although successfully removed, further damage caused during the operation meant it was unlikely she would ever walk again.

That was until now. On March 25, Lucy hit her £80,000 fundraising target after abseiling down the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth with 37 other people.

And just a month later, on April 25, Lucy had completed her first training session in her new device.

Celebrating the moment on Twitter, Lucy wrote: “Come on ‘Rodney’, time to get started on our new adventures together.”

A range of other fundraising events have been held throughout the year in aid of Lucy’s Legs, including a quiz night, an auction evening, a ladies tennis tournament at David Lloyd Farnham, and cake sales at Lucy’s workplace.

The former All Hallows Catholic School student, who now works as a child protection co-ordinator at Hampshire County Council, told the Herald: “In my head, I never set a date for reaching the target because I was fully aware it was a significant amount to raise and would be quite difficult to achieve.

“I never thought it would be in ten months. I was shocked and still am shocked, it still doesn’t feel real.”

Lucy first came across the ReWalk Exoskeleton Legs in September 2017 and was offered a trial.

But, last Thursday marked the first time she was able to use her very own device. She said she “still can’t quite believe it’s mine”, adding it “still feels like a dream”.

After her first session, Lucy said she ached and had “discovered muscles I didn’t know I had”.

She said it will be a few weeks, if not months, before she can take the device home with her as she is not yet “capable or confident” using them alone.

Lucy said: “I can’t wait for that moment. That’ll be when it sinks in that this is mine and I can start going out and doing all the things I’ve wanted to do.”

And to those who have helped raise funds in support of Lucy’s Legs, she added: “The words ‘thank you’ don’t seem enough.

“How can you really say what it means to those people who have literally helped to change your life?

“I will be forever grateful to each and every person who has helped and I can’t wait to share my next chapter with them.”