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Resilience after wheelchair theft reflects strength for Fort Worth mother

For those who know Darla Ray, few can identify the 52-year old recent college graduate without her signature motorized wheelchair.

"I love hot wheels," Ray said. "That what I always called it."

Until Monday.

The single mom to two daughters, who are also completing college, lost nearly everything of value during a home break-in overnight Sunday and early Monday morning in Fort Worth.

Whitney Smith and her sister documented the personal violation on the social media app Snapchat.

"Everything was ravaged." Whitney Smith said.

"When you walk into a situation like that, you don't see individual items, you just see the big picture of an awful scene," Ray said. "It took me about ten minutes and then I realized they had taken my wheelchair too. Those were my legs."

Ray used her wheelchair all over the University of North Texas campus when WFAA first met her in 2015. Then she was living in the dorms with her two college aged daughter Whitney and Whitley Smith.

Now the wheelchair was gone.

"When you are down, it’s not about being down," Ray said. "It’s about what you do to get up.”

Resilience is a life skill both her daughters fully embraced, so on Monday they took to social media, creating an online campaign with the hopes of raising funds to help them replace what their mom had lost.

In just two days, the campaign trended and picked up nearly $5000 in donations. That attention caught the eye of a Fort Worth based scooter company too.

On Wednesday a representative from Scooters and More stopped by the home to let Darla know they would donate a new scooter include lifetime maintenance for parts.

"That's just another human being that doesn't know me, caring enough about me to give my legs back," Ray said through joyful tears. "That's love. That is love."

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