Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home community helped quadriplegic Bob Collins out when he needed a van, and now his wife, Anita, is paying it forward to a former Sweet Home resident who needs a handicapped-accessible shower at home.
Sharon Spencer, a Lebanon resident, became a paraplegic in a motor vehicle accident on March 7, 2005 on Highway 228 while en route from Sweet Home to Brownsville where she worked as a caregiver, she said. After the crash, “I lived with my daughter about 3 1/2 years. This is my first apartment I’ve ever lived in by myself.”
She has been showering at the Lebanon community pool, but getting there is complicated, she said, and with winter, it’s harder for her to get out.
A new shower would cost $4,273, she said.
Anita Collins says she has felt that God has wanted her to help Spencer for quite a while. She’s decided that the best way to do that would be to help Spencer get the shower. She is looking to the Sweet Home community and others to help install that shower for Spencer.
“I mainly want people to realize that this is not a tax deduction,” she said. “This is more giving out of your heart.”
The men’s and women’s groups at the Sweet Home Evangelical Church have already stepped up and contributed $700 to the fund, she said.
Collins has set up an account at Wells-Fargo bank under the name “Sharon Spencer” for the project, she said. To access the funds requires the signature of another member of the Evangelical Church.
She would like to see the project completed as soon as possible, she said, but “obviously, it’s going to be God’s timing.”
“If I had a shower, I’d be in there at least three times a week or more till they get sick of showering me,” Spencer said. Right now, she showers once a week; but when she has different kinds of problems, it can be even longer.
Spencer, 59, is paralyzed from the chest down, she said, and her hands and arms are partially numb. Her hands also are incapable of grasping.
She was a passenger in the crash that caused her disability. The driver passed a vehicle as it was turning left. That vehicle T-boned her vehicle, and hers flipped into a field off the left side of the road.
“I’m the only one that didn’t walk away,” she said.
Collins said Spencer is always upbeat and never complains.
“The nurse in the hospital said I would be angry,” Spencer said. “I never was.
“When I woke up, my brother and kids were at the foot of the bed. I was just happy to see them. This is what was in the books for me from the day I was born.”
Knowing this and trusting in the Lord are what carry her through, she said.