MASON, Ohio —

The community is coming together to try to help a local hero heal.

Veterans Day is Thursday and there is a push to finish a fundraiser for Marine Cpl. Kelsee Lainhart with a big boost.

Lainhart was badly hurt in an attack during the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in August.

Family members said there is hope as she progresses in her recovery.

Lainhart's uncle, Kevin Ingram, said she is determined to walk again.

Right now, he said she cannot feel below her waist.

In the meantime, the community is rallying around her.

"She's always wanted to be in the Marine Corps. She started basic military training when she was 17 years old, got injured when she was 19. She's now 20," Ingram said.

He reflected on his niece's journey and her resilience.

Ingram also remembered the punch in the gut, when he learned a young woman he considered practically a daughter was hurt in the attack at the Kabul Airport in August.

"It's devastating. I knew where she was. I knew that she had worked the Abbey Gate," Ingram said.

Lainhart, 20, graduated from East Central High School in Dearborn County in 2019.

Her family and fellow Marines have seen her grit and her strength as she recovers in Chicago at the Shirley Ryan facility.

Her uncle said it is not a VA Hospital, so there will be additional costs.

Ingram said she cannot walk, at least now, but that's no deterrent.

"Kelsee is a warrior. She is a Marine. She's got a positive attitude. She is going to walk again. She tells me that every time I talk to her. She's working very hard. They have all kinds of different treatments they're doing," Ingram said.

People have rallied around her.

Basco Shower Enclosures, where Ingram works, launched a fundraiser to help her, too.

It ends on Veterans Day with the company putting a percentage toward each donation.

"We don't look at this, it's not this week, it's the next 40, 50, 60 years that we're looking at. If you think about, if Kelsee doesn't fully recover and walk again, you know, you're going to have to have adaptive housing situations, you're going to have cars that are adaptive," Ingram said.

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Many in Lainhart's family have served in the military, including Ingram.

Now, the community is saying thank you.

"We'd like to just kind of get as much support as we can now and push this thing forward through the finish line," he said.

Ingram said they will still gladly take donations after Veterans Day.

He also wanted to honor the Marine Corps birthday on Wednesday.

Ingram told WLWT Lainhart still wants to chase her dream of going to college and being an FBI agent.

Basco Shower Enclosures has raised more than $20,000 so far.

There are several ways you can make a donation, including by Venmo.

There's more information on the Basco Shower Enclosures website here.

Roughly 18,000 pregnant women across the U.S. have been hospitalized because of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and that includes a Florida woman who had to have an early delivery when her health started to deteriorate.

The last 10 days felt like months for Robert Hartman as he watched his pregnant wife Chelsea Hartman fight for her life.

"When your wife is with your daughter inside her and having issues breathing, it's scary," Hartman said. "She just started [to have] body aches and chills."

The couple found out they were expecting in January -- at that time the CDC was not recommending the vaccine for pregnant women, and Chelsea had her own concerns.

"She was skeptical about [the vaccine] because there wasn't enough research on the effects of a growing baby and a mother that's growing a baby inside her," Hartman said.

This week, the CDC suggested pregnant women get a COVID-19 vaccine in wake of the delta variant and the surge in cases.

Chelsea Harman landed in the ER with COVID-19 Aug. 2.

"It was [a] very scary 24 hours because they continued to increase her oxygen because her O2SAT was falling," Hartman said. "They did a chest X-ray, they confirmed that she had COVID pneumonia."

"I found out I was a father from sitting at my kitchen island," Hartman said. "So much of the experience was gone of seeing [our newborn] when she's brought into the world and being there, holding my wife's hand."

Chelsea and her newborn showed a glimmer of hope Wednesday when they were pulled off the tubes and able to breathe on their own. As new parents, the Hartmans met their new baby through a video call.

"What I learned in this is my wife is loved and there's still an unbelievable amount of great people that have offered time and support throughout this," Hartman said.

The Hartmans have received overwhelming support through a GoFundMe.

As Chelsea continues to recover, her husband says she will likely need physical, speech and respiratory therapy. The earliest the baby can leave the hospital is at 36 weeks.

Watch the video above for the full story.