Chloe Holmes, now 15, heartbreakingly lost most of her fingers when she was a mere toddler after suffering from septicaemia due to chickenpox. She’s been without a usable hand since then. Thankfully though, she’s been outfitted with a bionic hand to help her out.
Her family paid around $US62,700 to give her left arm her new bionic hand. She’s not quite sure how it works, she cutely explains to the BBC that there are sensors somewhere in the glove. The bionic fingers are especially dexterous though, it looks very similar to the i-LIMB Pulse that’s helped so many before. Her dad, is almost as ecstatic as Chloe:
“We’d go out as a family and people would stare for the wrong reasons — they stare now in amazement.
I love these stories of teenagers having their lives changed with great technology like this. She’s been spending her summer getting used to her new hand, learning new tasks she couldn’t do before (cut fruit, etc) and is hoping to re-join school (where she was previously picked on) and live a normal life. I hope she will. [BBC]
Tim
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 1:46 PMThat is just beautiful. She should change her name to “the $62,700 girl” (instead of the six million dollar man). The only way this could be made better was if it made the bionic man noise while it worked (http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Bionic_Man_Sounds.aspx). So great to see tech making a real fundamental difference to lives.
TSH
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 2:37 PMBesides building bases for us on other planets, bionic implants and prosthetics like this are the best reason to love robotics.
Nilcraban
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 2:52 PMThis is an awesome story and any one who decides to give her grief now better watch out that hand looks very terminatoresque :)
LDX
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 3:00 PMcan she smash in walls?
olearymo
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 4:30 PMYes, the new hand doesn’t hinder her ability to smash in walls at all :P
LDX
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 2:17 PMCHLOE SMASH WALL!!!! WAARRGGHHHH
Rowan
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 4:07 PMAny future boyfriends will have to watch out for that thing, looks like it has quite a bit of crushing power behind it =P
T800
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 7:10 PMThis is yet another article where the ‘technology + complexity = better’ theme comes out to play.
Have a read around this site to see you some amputees view the ‘bionic’ solution…
A quote: “In typical media hypes, prostheses are glorified as “bionic” (while for hands, for example, there are just some interference prone loudly squeaking motors with an open/close function such as prosthetic hands use to do since ~300 years, with a ~700 USD bad ass battery that runs for ~3-5 hours) or “thought controlled” (bwahahaha).”
http://www.swisswuff.ch/tech/?p=266#more-266
Chloe
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 8:01 PMFollow me on Twitter @thebionicgurl
Thank you for your kind comments
Chloe x
Steve
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 8:46 PMAnd here I came in, all prepared with snarky Biker Mice/Mortal Kombat/Bionic Commando punchlines.. But it’s a genuinely heartwarming story. Hope they keep up the good work.