This Thanksgiving saw a lot of unrest in the United States, with protests taking place around the decision in Ferguson and workers fighting for better pay and the right to unionize at Walmart locations across the country, but, for one group of good Samaritans, this Thanksgiving was about helping a little girl in Lynchburg Virginia, born without a portion of her left arm. Limbitless Solutions, a nonprofit that has grown out of E-Nable, has expanded upon E-Nable’s partial prosthetics to create bionic hands suitable for individuals born without wrists.
Limbitless Solutions previously made headlines around the world when they developed a bionic hand for a young boy named Alex. While many folks were visiting family the days leading up to Thanksgiving, Limbitless was visiting Madelyn Rebsamen, a seven-year-old born without a complete left forearm. The nonprofit has been in communication with Rebsamen’s family since September of this year and have since been rushing to get the arm done by Thanksgiving.
Because every arm created by the group is tailored to the individual, there are always new kinks to work out. As a result, they found themselves driving up from Florida all night to arrive in Virginia the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. There, Limbitless engineers worked to get the prosthetic fitted to Maddy’s arm. On top of the electronics, improved since Alex’s design, Maddie’s arm has an artistically designed sleeve, demonstrating the design possibilities offered by 3D printed prosthetics over mass produced medical devices.
Maddie’s mom, Bonnie Rebsamen, told the local ABC news, “To finally find somebody that was so excited to make it for us, and it was going to be fast, and it was going to be easy. Well, easy on my end I should say.” John Sparkman, Director of Research and Design for Limbitless, added, “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s fulfilling I guess. Very satisfying to do something that’s not in my job description, but I can help out to do something that’s good for everyone involved.” Maddie told the news channel that the first thing she’ll do with the arm is climb the monkey bars at school.
CEO and Founder of Limbitless Solutions, Albert Manero, tells me that the team finished the project just in time to drive back to their families in Florida for Thanksgiving day. The nonprofit plans to continue improving their device and has a lot more in the works. They also plan to team with a few colleges to expand their operations. To keep up with their developments, you can find a good deal of news from Limbitless on their Facebook page. Needless to say, I’m excited to see what they do next!
