Ignition Cylinder (lock), jammed, stuck?

At 61 years old I’ve had numerous vehicles and have actively participated in rebuilding several engines and did my own repairs for 25 years when I was younger. I am now a grandmother and worked in the aerospace manufacturing industry as a nondestructive testing technician and am educated. That said: we were given a 98 cavalier with 147,000 miles on it (very low miles for the year and in great shape) for doing someone a great favor and that person was moving to Hawaii and gave us the car. After that we had some problems with the cooling system and ended up putting about $3,000 into the car and it’s practically a brand-new car now and we will never have a car payment which is my standard. The car gets awesome mileage and it’s just a utility vehicle since our farm is 70 miles from the city. I was in the hospital today getting some tests on my heart and when I pulled up to the front door, the valet came out and got in my car and drove it away to park it and I went inside. When I approached the front door to leave the hospital an hour later, I had not contacted the valet to tell them I was headed down to leave and I was in a wheelchair being pushed by a cardiac technician. When I got to the front door area I looked up and saw my car parked in the no parking fire zone it was about 150 feet down 1/4 of the circle drive from the front door of the hospital and I was very confused about that. I told one of the valet driver standing there and pointed to my car and said, “that’s my car over there“. And that person just handed me the key to my car and turned and walked away. That was very confusing to me because I have never had a valet driver, no matter where, ever just hand me a key to my car and expect me to walk down the sidewalk and go get in my own car and especially the fact that my car was parked in a “no parking anytime” zone with the red curb and in an area designated for fire trucks. So I went to my car and unlocked the door and got in and when I put the key in the ignition cylinder, it was completely jammed and would not turn it on and I was unable to start the car. I took the key in and out numerous times and flipped it over and tried everything including applying pressure pulling left on the steering wheel and right on the steering wheel thinking that the locking steering wheel mechanism was under tension and absolutely nothing I did worked. After about 20 minutes and becoming extremely frustrated, I called the very good friend of ours that’s 42 years old and is a maintenance supervisor of 17 apartment complexes and he has gotten into all kinds of locks and very experienced, including some vehicle locks, and he was about five minutes from his house and very close to the hospital. He arrived in his white work van and parked right in front of my car there in the no parking zone. He got out and got in my car and he also became extremely perplexed and at one point we even tried rocking the car back-and-forth just in case the park position on the gearshift for the automatic transmission was not exactly lined up and absolutely nothing we did worked. It was at that time that he told me that he believed that the valet person who parked my car may have pulled the key out of the ignition before the ignition cylinder was completely in the off position and that would damage ignition cylinder. The car has the Auto Theft feature which apparently connects the computer with the ignition cylinder and can easily be damaged if the vehicle is miss used. Having gotten upset I needed to run into the hospital to use the restroom and when I returned my friend had the car running and the cylinder was turned with the key in it and he said he had to use a lot of force to “pop” that so he could get the car running as we live 70 miles from the hospital and absolutely had to get home because I have animals outside at my farm and it’s nighttime and it is a vicious predator area. My friend told me not to shut the car off and under any circumstances until we were back on the farm because he didn’t know if the car would start again. So I left and went to pick up my husband from another appointment he had and we drove out to the farm and when we got in the driveway and turned the car off I tried to turn the car back on and it’s jammed. Currently our jeep is being worked on by the neighbor and now we have no running vehicle at all and we are 70 miles from the city. I did call the hospital valet supervisor and completely gave a detailed report over the phone as to exactly what happened step-by-step and I asked him to review the security cameras with his boss and they would be able to see that I was in a no parking zone where the fire tracks are supposed to have space to get in there or should there be an emergency. I told him that I believed that what it occurred was that the young man who originally took my car seem to be extremely confused and like a brand new employee not really knowing what to do, and then I believed that he drove my car from the front door over to the no parking zone and parked it there and turned it off and may have pulled the key out before the car was all the way into the office position which damaged the ignition cylinder. I believe that when someone went to go and get in the car and move it to the parking garage where the valet parking parks the patient’s cars until they are ready to leave, The valet driver was unable to get my car to turn on because the ignition cylinder was jammed and so they just left my car there in the no parking emergency zone until I got finished and went to leave the hospital and no one said anything about what it happened to my car they just handed me the key and I walked from the door all the way down the sidewalk 1/4 around a very large Circular driveway and got into my car and found the surprise that my key would not turn as the cylinder was jammed. During the entire time and I was trying to get my car started before I even called my friend to assist me, not one person of the valet crew or a hospital security came over to see why I was parked in a no parking zone with a red curb and then after my friend arrived with his white van and parked in the same area, still no valet crew nor hospital security came to ask why we were parked there. That in and of itself is extremely unusual. At the very least, security would be right on top of that and threatening to tow a vehicle or whatever. So, we got home to the farm and got the animals put up but now the car is not going to start and I have several extremely important medical test coming up that I had to wait months for, one of which is this coming Monday and have no idea how on earth I’m going to get to these appointments. My husband has been laid off for five months and has applied for 91 jobs and we are practically financially destitute at this point and now the car is broken. The only thing we can think of is trying to figure out how to get the steering column apart and there is no way we can wait several days for the hospital to respond and hire a mobile mechanic to come out and fix the car if they would even consider doing that at all. I have no way to buy a Chilton manual, I have no money to get a Chilton manual and I have no way to travel to even go find a Chilton manual. Do you have any detail diagrams or assembly drawings and instructions on disassembly, repair and re-assembly step by step? Can you suggest anything? I will be extremely grateful for all consideration and help. Yahweh Bless.