Help Jodie find a wheelchair accessible home

A tragic snowboarding accident in 2005 resulted in Jodie breaking her neck & becoming a C5 incomplete Quadriplegic. She was paralysed instantly from the neck down & was flown by helicopter to Prince of Wales Hospital Randwick which became home for the next 5 months.
After 3 months in hospital she started to regain a little feeling & movement & over the next couple of months was fortunate to learn how to move & walk again but still had the known permanent limitations & complications of a C5 spinal-cord injury.
Her rehab was full-time for the next 2 years & still continues 4 days a week today, to maintain the level of mobility she’s regained, or it slides downhill fast.

6 months after she learnt how to walk again she got back on her snowboard & in the summer of 2006 she was invited to attend the first ever Canadian adaptive snowboard training program which was the beginning of a new adventure.

She became the pioneer of Adaptive snowboarding in Australia as she began training & competing at an international level in the US, Canada & NZ. She was the only Australian competitive adaptive snowboarder until 2012 when she fell pregnant with her daughter Stevie who is now 7 years old.

Recently Jodie gained access through her NDIS funding to a powered Omeo wheelchair. Although she can walk she’s not able to walk far without her feet dragging along the ground causing regular falls, so the wheelchair was to give her some more freedom & independence to go places with her daughter that required walking distances. It also had off-road tyres which would allow her to get down onto the beach & walking tracks.

On 20th August 2020 coming down the driveway to her apartment complex something went unexpectedly wrong with her wheelchair & her feet ended up pinned into a parked car at the bottom crushing her left ankle, both Tibia & Fibia as well as causing small fractures in her right foot.

She is currently in Gold Coast University Hospital still awaiting surgery with another long road of recovery ahead including up to 2 more weeks in hospital post surgery, 8 weeks of non-weight-bearing post surgery & months of rehab, except she is a single Mum with her family in Sydney who can’t travel up to be with her or take care of her daughter due to Covid.

Jodie has no family in Queensland & has had to turn to close friends to help her out to look after her daughter & take her to & from school etc which would be obviously taking an emotional toll on both of them as she has been the sole parent of Stevie from birth. It’s just the two of them so this little girl is missing her Mum.

She was told her surgery to put all the plates & pins in was going to be yesterday Monday the 31st August however the orthopaedic doctors informed her Monday morning that they had made a mistake & that her the surgery is actually a week later on the following Monday. This means another week away from her daughter with another week delaying her recovery & getting back on her feet.

Her current apartment is up 2 flights of stairs & is not lift accessible nor wheelchair friendly but she is going to be back in a wheelchair for the next few months & will need the help of support workers to help her around the home & with her daughter.

Unfortunately the NDIS will not cover her for short-term emergency wheelchair accessible accommodation which leaves her with the only option to look for wheelchair accessible holiday accommodation & she will need to find this close to the Palm Beach area where her daughter goes to school. She had only just moved into her new rental apartment in July & intends to stay there but will be unable to return home for the non-weight-bearing period post surgery.

I would like to help her to cover the cost of short-term wheelchair accessible accommodation as we all know how expensive holiday accommodation can be. The cost is likely to run into the thousands over a 2 month period & she will still be paying the rent on her current lease while she is in hospital.

Anything you could donate towards helping her to cover these costs over the next few months would be greatly appreciated.