By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Betsy Judkins learned from personal experience of the need and cost of medical equipment. That’s why she founded a lending service.

Her family’s life changed forever, she said, on Dec. 29, 2003, when her husband, Gearry Judkins, sustained serious injuries in a head-on collision with a pulp truck in Dixfield. The couple struggled to find expensive medical equipment including a wheelchair, shower seat and toilet extension. They were given several items they could ill-afford to purchase after having just moved to Farmington.

A shower chair alone costs about $77, said Judkins during a recent interview on her sunny porch across from the Mallett School in Farmington. Insurance did not cover enough of the costs, she said.

It wasn’t enough that her husband, was hospitalized for a month after the accident that left him with two breaks in his left leg and a lacerated liver. His mother, a nurse there to assist with her son’s care, fell on ice and broke her leg.

Betsy Judkins was nursing two, and she had just learned she was pregnant.

Gearry, 27, still walks with a limp and needs more surgery, but for now he is crutch-free.

With Gearry and his mother, now freed from walking aids, they no longer have use for them. People who had “loaned” them to the couple said they didn’t want the items back, Betsy said. “There’s got to be someone who needs this,” she said of the supplies she’s amassed, so she founded Annie’s Beanpole.

It is named for her grandmother and her husband’s crutches.

When her grandmother Annie had a stroke and needed equipment, her family turned to a similar community closet in her home town of King George, Va., she said.

And daydreams of beans growing up his defunct crutches kept Gearry going.

At present, the Judkins’ basement houses a small inventory of shower seats, toilet extensions and crutches. She is collecting equipment via local churches – having started with her own, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, the word is spreading through other local churches.

In a statement she circulated to her congregation and others, Betsy wrote, “What I need from the community is the equipment to begin this venture. Together we can make a difference in the lives of families facing difficult times.”

Someone offered her a hospital bed, she said, but she does not have space for such a large item. She does not yet have any wheelchairs but has had a request for one, she said.

“I don’t wish for people to need these things, but at least they’re there,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to have to search and search. It’s already a difficult enough time when somebody gets hurt,” she added.

People interested in donating equipment or in need of it may contact Betsy Judkins at 778-9665.