A YOUNG woman is celebrating after the community rallied around to buy a lifechanging wheelchair.

Lucy Watts, who celebrates her 22nd birthday today, has a brand new chair which will help her get out and about more often.

Lucy, of Swans Green Close, Benfleet, lives with Ehlers- Danlos syndrome, a genetic condition which affects connective tissues in skin, tendons, ligaments and bones.

She said the new wheelchair has already made a huge difference.

She said: “I want to say thank you to the local community for getting behind me and to the Echo for helping get the story out there and helping with the fundraising.”

“It’s lovely to be supported and it’s all good awareness of my condition, of the charity, health and disability work I do and the work of the charities I work with. I am so grateful.

“The wheelchair was delivered to my home as arranged. It has made my life so different already.”

The new Permobil F5 Corpus wheelchair, costing more than £22,000, will help Lucy’s daily battle with the syndrome – a rare tissue disorder which has left her in a wheelchair and suffering intense periods of pain and chronic fatigue since she was 14.

She said the pain she suffers has already decreased by half due to the new chair.

She added: “The chair allows me to spend more quality time with my family and event just sitting in the sitting room together is lovely.

The new chair will raise my legs up and will raise me up to be eye level with a person which is great.

“Now I have the new wheelchair I will able to do more for myself, but at the same time be able to help others, the chair will help me to help others.

“The remaining money that was needed was donated through a friend of a friend, but I haven’t met her yet and don’t even know her name.”

To find out more about Lucy’s story, visit lucy-watts.co.uk.