CRAWFORD COUNTY, Ga. — Connie Houlihan loves to be outdoors and have an active lifestyle. On New Year's 2020, Houlihan was headed to a workout class with her daughter when her legs started to feel heavy.
"I got to the facility and within 10 minutes of being inside. I was unable to walk," Houlihan said.
Houlihan went to see the doctor and they told her she had suffered a stroke.
"I was told that I had a spinal cord infarction," Houlihan said.
A spinal cord infarction is when the "blood supply to the spinal cord stops." Houlihan suffered damage to her T10 spinal cord. She isn't able to walk normally.
Her life would never be the same after Jan. 1, 2020.
She spent months going to rehab in Jacksonville. During that time, she had a custom wheelchair made.
"It's still so emotional. It's still a challenge every day," Houlihan said.
Over the weekend, the challenges only got harder after someone took her wheelchair off the side of the road on GA Highway 42.
Her husband, Sean Houlihan, said the wheelchair wasn't strapped on fully on the back of his pickup truck. They were headed to a birthday party in Warner Robins when the chair fell off.
Connie says because the chair is so light, they wouldn't have known that it fell off. Her husband says it was a "human error."
"There's four straps that hold it on in place and I forgot to put all four straps on," Sean said.
When they stopped at the store to pick up a card, that's when Sean noticed the wheelchair was missing.
Someone posted on Facebook that they'd seen the missing chair and left it on the side of the road. The person in the Facebook post said they put it on the side hoping the owners would be able to find it.
By the time the Houlihans got to the spot where the chair was, someone had taken it. Only two pieces of the chair were left behind. The armrest and the side piece of the chair, to keep her clothes from getting caught in the wheel. The chair can't be folded like a regular wheelchair because it's custom and it can only be taken apart.
The couple had to go out and buy a wheelchair from Walmart. Connie says it's been difficult moving in the chair because it's not comfortable. Her husband says without the right wheelchair, it hurts her livelihood.
"It's not good for her posture, it's not good for her leg circulation and those types of things to be sitting in this chair," Sean Houlihan said.
They hope someone will be nice enough to call her and return the chair.
"Leaving it don't drive off until I get there but leave it no questions ask. My chair is important to me," Houlihan said.
The couple say they have reached out to local law enforcement in hopes someone will call them about the missing wheelchair.