Emily Worley’s family members knew they needed a wheelchair ramp outside their home for years, she said Thursday night. They just didn’t know how to make it happen. In the meantime, her 11-year-old daughter Kailie needed others — usually siblings — to carry her chair up and down the two porch steps every time she left or came home.
“We had looked at some ramps, little portable ones, fold-ups, things like that, but because of the rise we had (on our porch), we couldn’t find something that was ADA compliant,” Worley said.
Her post to the Norwood Strong Facebook group was one more attempt to find help — a contractor, maybe, or someone in the neighborhood with know-how. The other members responded quickly and kindly, she said. Some pointed her toward the Norwood Fire Department for advice.
She got more than that. A group of firefighters took on the project for free, creating and installing a ramp that will allow Kailie to get in and out of her home under her own power.