Dude’s Ripped-Off Arm Replaced With Realistic Prototype Bionic I-Limb

One day while riding in his friend’s car, Evan Reynolds’ arm got ripped off, and he became one of the first people to score a fully functioning Luke-Skywalker-style robotic I-Limb from Touch Bionics.

He’d been hanging his arm out the car window when his friend exited a parking lot a little too close to a wooden gatepost. A quick scrape and the arm “was amputated in a second,” the 19-year-old British college student told the Telegraph UK. “It was very nasty.” His friend applied a tourniquet and saved Evan’s life. (Side note: Glad he’s still your friend Evan—I’m not sure I could be as forgiving.)

Later on, Evan’s big brother called up Touch Bionics, based in Scotland, and they ended up fitting the kid with the $US60,000 arm you see in the video above, capable of “peeling a potato, catching a ball, holding a bottle of water.” In the past year, Touch has given arms to a number of people including soldiers wounded in combat. Evan’s fitting happened in February of last year.

“It’s so sensitive I can grip a bottle of water or a paper cup without crushing it, and even swing a racket. All I have to so is imagine picking something up or gripping it and the fingers and thumb move automatically,” he told the Telegraph. [Telegraph UK via Geekologie]