FREDERICK, Md. - A wheelchair belonging to a woman who crawls up 14 steps to her apartment every day was stolen at the bottom of those stairs early Tuesday.

"It's like they stole my freedom," said Carole Powell, 47, fighting back tears. "I have no way to get around. I can't even think about it, it upsets me so much. That chair enabled me to work and not ask anybody for anything."

Powell has used a wheelchair since 1999, when bone disease forced the amputation of her left leg below the knee.

She had to leave the wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs to her apartment. "I crawled up (to the apartment) every day," she said.

Powell thinks someone left the door to the hallway open or someone jimmied open the lock Monday night.

The woman used a backup chair, which is in poor shape, on her job at the MARC train station, where she sells tickets for Greyhound. But she was in pain much of the day, because the chair's brakes don't work, the armrests are broken and the seat is too small, she said.

"I don't know what to do," she said, having recently spent $1,400 for new wheels for the stolen chair, and can't afford to buy a new one. Local charities did not have a wheelchair to lend her.

"I can't imagine a person who steals a wheelchair," she said.

A report was filed with Frederick police, but by Tuesday evening, no one had found the chair, according to Sgt. Wade Brown.

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Information from: The Frederick (Md.) News-Post, http://www.fredericknewspost.com

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