posted by Chris @ 7/12/2005 09:04:00 AM  
The Bionic Green Beret

This story is both inspirational and interesting. A Green Beret, who lost his hand and lower arm in Afghanistan in 2003, has fashioned a bionic hand/arm that he hopes will enable him to return to combat. Here's an excerpt:

"While training at Fort Bragg, he regularly smashed his prosthetic hands. So on his return to the hospital, he huddled with the staff to build a sturdier model he could take to war. The prosthetists at Walter Reed encased fingers of a fake hand in carbon fiber. To protect the hand's small electric motor, they fashioned small steel plates that clamped on to the palm. Finally, they filled the pinky with an extra hard polymer.

In April 2004, Sgt. McCaffrey spent a month at Fort Bragg training with newly minted Green Berets. His new hand held up. "The environmental conditions were rain and temperatures near 100 degrees. At no time did SSG McCaffrey's (arm) malfunction. Nor did it hamper the detachment's operational mission," the instructor wrote in an evaluation. A few weeks later, Sgt. McCaffrey took his annual fitness test -- a combination of push-ups, sit-ups and two-mile run. He scored higher than he did before his injury."

I'm not making light of the situation in any way with the following: Wouldn't it be neat if you could mount extra things in a bionic hand, such as a flashlight, radio, watch and more. Or perhaps even a cutting tool or one-shot gun!?

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