A FARNHAM charity has donated £5,000 toward a wheelchair-bound woman’s quest to buy a walking aid.

Lucy Dodd, who was diagnosed with spinal arteriovenous malformation in 2002 and has been left with no sensation below the waist, needs to raise £80,000 to buy a ReWalk Personal 6.0 exoskeleton device.

Since May, Lucy has raised more than £47,000 through her Lucy’s Legs campaign, and now she has welcomed a cash injection from The Hedgehogs charity.

Lucy contacted The Hedgehogs in June to see if they could help and they made the donation in December.

As a result of being in the wheelchair and unable to bare weight or walk, Lucy has developed osteoporosis. She has also had to contend with ligament damage to her wrists and elbows as a direct result of pulling and pushing her standard wheelchair around.

This resulted in Lucy having an operation on her wrist in 2009 to remove some bone and insert a metal plate to try to alleviate some of the pain she was suffering.

Lucy, who lives near Farnham and attended William Cobbett School and All Hallows school, had to give up her university career in 2002 but now holds a BA in English language and a Masters in speech and language therapy.

She works full time for Hampshire County Council’s children’s services in Aldershot.

The Lucy’s Legs campaign has undertaken a number of fundraising activities over the last seven months courtesy of her friends and work colleagues, including cake sales, a charity tennis tournament at the David Lloyd Centre, charity auction and several races, including the Great South Run, in which Lucy also took part.

Lucy is currently finalising more initiatives, including a car boot sale with her office colleagues at Hampshire County Council, a quiz and curry night, and a sponsored abseil at Spinnaker Tower at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth.

She has already filled 35 places at a minimum sponsorship of £50 per head and she plans to abseil the Spinnaker Tower herself.

At the presentation of the £5,000 donation this month, Salvatore Mezzullo, chairman of The Hedgehogs, said: “Lucy epitomises the type of individual that the Hedgehogs seek to support in our local community. Lucy exhibits a strong sense of overcoming all hurdles that have been placed in front of her as evidenced by her fund raising achievements in just over seven months.”

Lucy added: “I had heard of The Hedgehogs as a local charity and decided to contact them to enquire whether they would be able to support my Lucy’s Legs campaign.

“The words ‘thank you’ really don’t seem enough but I am extremely grateful to The Hedgehogs for their interest in me and their fantastic donation of £5,000 to help me walk again using the ReWalk Personal 6.0 system.”

For more details about the Lucy’s Legs campaign, or to donate, visit lucyslegs.com.