JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The mother of the 10-year-old girl whose specialized wheelchair stroller disappeared on Halloween told New4Jax the chair was returned Wednesday.
Beth Rasch, whose daughter, Clara, suffers from a seizure disorder, made an impassioned plea to the public earlier this week for the stolen stroller to be returned.
She told News4Jax Wednesday that she was sitting in her house when a friend sent her a picture of a wheelchair that looked like Clara's outside a house just a few blocks away from Rasch's Avondale home.
"Neighbors that live about five blocks away thought that they saw something up in the driveway of a house that's being renovated, so the family isn't there all the time, and there's dumpsters and port-o-potties and all kind of things in the way," Rasch said. "I don't even have the full story, but they thought they saw a stroller sort of tucked back and around there, so they went back up and took a picture of it and sent it to me, and I said, 'Oh my gosh! That is Clara's stroller.'"
Rasch said the stroller is perfectly intact and completely undamaged by the elements. It's still unclear how the chair ended up blocks from her home, but Rasch called its return a miracle.
"We really wanted to have you all out to thank you, because we had an outpouring of support, people wanting to know what they could do," Rasch said. "And, of course, all we've wanted all along was Clara's chair returned. So our answer when everyone asked what they could do was to just please pray and pass the word along, and everybody keep looking and not give up hope. And it worked."
Clara's wheelchair originally went missing after the family returned from a Halloween party and the chair was accidentally left in front of the house for about an hour.
The community rallied to the family's aid when they heard Rasch's story, offering money for a replacement chair.
But Rasch told News4Jax on Monday that the real difficulty wasn't the cost of a new chair but the time it takes to order and receive a specialized chair like Clara's. She said it could take about a year and a half because the chairs are specially made for the child's needs.
Rasch said the family searched the neighborhood for hours Halloween night after the chair went missing, but nothing turned up.
She said the family hadn't been able to take Clara out much since the wheelchair disappeared, because they had to put her in a smaller chair, which was very uncomfortable for her.