By Marley Seaman
"At 90 miles an hour, he flipped the car," said Karen Dolan.
Kelly no longer speaks, and is fed by a tube and medicated through a shunt.
Kelly could only enter the front of the house using a pair of yellow, plastic telescoping ramps. They extended from the porch to the middle of the walkway to the home. When folded, they weighed more than 50 pounds each, were five feet long, and most of the time, they lay on the stairway of the home Karen Dolan shares with her husband, Tom.
So needless to say, the Dolans were shocked when they discovered that the ramps had been stolen.
On February 18, the ramps were taken from the front of the Dolan's home. The Dolans, who were away in Pennsylvania at the time, have bought an apartment in Long Beach and are in the process of moving. Their home may have looked abandoned, said Karen Dolan, and when her brother-in-law came to check on the home the following Tuesday, he noticed that the ramps were missing.
Dolan wasn't sure who would want to steal the ramps, only to speculate that it could have been kids or someone with an ATV.
Dolan said she thinks someone may have stolen the ramps with an ATV, since the ramps are designed to help load ATV's into pickup truck beds.
"Maybe a kid took them to jump on their bikes," Karen Dolan said.
Karen and Tom Dolan ordered the $175 ramps from the Cabela's Hunting, Fishing and Outdoor Gear Web site so Kelly would not always have to go around the back of the house, where they built an addition for her.
The Dolans had planned to give the ramps to Karen's sister, who lives in Long Beach. They would have been used whenever the entire family got together. Instead, Karen Dolan is left wondering if she is the victim of thieves or a simple mistake.
"On Monday, I was really upset," she said. "The police said to me that they can't even write up a report because I have no way of identifying them" without a serial number.
In the meantime, Dolan said she is trying to appeal to the better nature of the person who took the ramps. She painted a sign explaining the situation and placed it above the "For Sale" sign on her front lawn. It reads: "Please return yellow ramps used for wheelchair to get handicapped daughter in and out. No questions asked."
As the Dolans prepare to leave Baldwin on a sad note, Karen Dolan said she is "disappointed" about the theft. But until they leave Baldwin, she'll hold out hope that her ramps will return as suddenly as they vanished.
