Special hiking chair stolen from local family, leaving 8-year-old with cerebral palsy sidelined

REXBURG — A special outdoor mobility chair that allows a little girl with cerebral palsy to spend time with her family was recently stolen, leaving her mother devastated.

“I cried. I knew it would mean that our summers were not going to be the same. I was just heartbroken that it was gone. We were all pretty upset,” said Heather Goodsell.

Heather, her husband Jonathan, and three children live in Rexburg. Their daughter, Hailey, 8, is quadriplegic and has been wheelchair bound her whole life. She was born at 26 weeks at 1 pound, 7 ounces and spent about four months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Though she is nonverbal, her mother says she is one of the sassiest little girls she knows.

“She is full of personality in her own way. She loves to be outside with her siblings. She actually taught herself how to play the piano,” Heather said. “She has really proven to us and to a lot of our family members that just because you have disabilities, it doesn’t mean that your life should be limited.”

The Goodsell family loves to spend time outdoors, going hiking and camping. They had a “Huckleberry Hiking” chair for Hailey so she could easily be included on outdoor adventures. The chair allows individuals with mobility challenges to experience rugged terrain.

“The way it works is someone hooks themselves up to it, and they pull it. That’s what my husband did last year. He was able to put himself in the harness, and we put Hailey in the hiker, and it has hiking sticks on it and everything for the person pulling it, and you can go wherever,” Heather explained.

She said it was really fun. The hiker chair went to Jackson Hole, Teton National Park and the Palisades.

“We were able to take it in the water and Hailey loved going through the water and putting her hand in the water,” Heather said. “We really miss it.”

On March 29 this year, Heather said it was nice outside and they decided they were going to hike at Cress Creek in Rexburg. They went out to their storage unit to grab the hiker chair for Hailey. The property requires a key to the gate to get in.

“We got there and we realized the lock was gone (on our unit), and my husband’s like, ‘That’s kind of weird.’ So then we got it open, and the storage unit had just been turned over. The first thing we noticed was that the huckleberry hiker was gone. It was completely gone,” Heather said.

Furniture was flipped over as if whoever took the hiker chair had looked for other valuables. A wagon was taken, but the chair was the biggest loss.

“I don’t know how they knew that this was valuable, but they took probably one of the most valuable things in our storage unit, at least to us,” Heather said.

They reported the incident to the Madison County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Ron Ball told EastIdahoNews.com the investigation into the theft is still ongoing; however, there are no leads.

Heather has been looking at local pawn shops, Facebook Marketplace, and anywhere she could think of to find it.

But it hasn’t turned up throughout the months. She even called insurance to see if anything would be covered but found out that their insurance was willing to cover 5 percent of what was stolen and that it would increase their premium.

“The way that this impacts Hailey is that she just can’t go with us to things anymore. Which I don’t think is fair because she likes to go on the hikes. She loves to go out and adventure with us,” Heather said. “We just kind of gave up on having the hiker because its $2,500.”

But she had a friend, Brittany Cannon, reach out to her.

“She said, ‘Heather, I really want to do a GoFundMe. I feel so bad that this has happened.’ I was really hesitant at first because part of me feels like, ‘I’m just Heather. It’s just Hailey. Who is going to want to donate to something like this?'” she said.

Eventually, she accepted the offer and said she feels blessed and touched.

“I feel a little bit in awe that somebody would think of us and want to do something like that for us. I feel very blessed that we have such good people in our lives,” she added. “We’re thankful for anybody who’s willing to donate so that we can go back to doing fun summer things with our whole family instead of having to find a babysitter for Hailey.”

The GoFundMe has a $2,500 goal. As of Thursday morning, $220 has been raised.