Bionics

I was fascinated last night when I saw on the news that a soldier, Cpl Andrew Garthwaite (aged 26) from South Tyneside, was badly injured in Afghanistan when a Taliban grenade took off his right arm. He is believed to be the first person in the UK to have such a bionic arm.

It involved surgery, including having his nerve system rewired, and months of learning how to use the new arm.

To prepare for the technology the soldier underwent six hours of surgery at a hospital in Austria in January 2012 in a procedure called Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (TMR).

The surgeons at the hospital in the Medical University of Vienna had to rewire his nervous system - taking the nerve endings from his shoulder, that would have run down to his hand - and rewired these into his chest muscles.

He moves the hand by thought processes - remarkable!

I don't know how to put video links so it'll have to be via a general link to the Beeb: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-25320455

What a difference it must make to his life. Well done to those who pioneered and perfected this procedure.

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Incredible and wonderful !

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Technology is more or less out of control now. Massive changes are taking place at an accelerated pace. Who know what will be available in just a few years time? Stuff from sci-fi comics / films ain't so far fetched anymore. Probably anything will be possible with hi-tech eventually.

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Isn't it just. When I was a child, a couple of people my parents knew (men) had lost their hand or arm in factory accidents and the false hand they had was very noticeable and they couldn't use it. I hope these people end up with some kind of recognition (probably don't have knighthoods in Vienna) for the sheer brainpower to envisage the whole thing. Makes me proud of the human race (for a change!).

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I was surprised he hadn't been referred to as the Six Million Dollar Man in some way or another - mind you, given the party trick he does I think he'd laugh it off anyway.

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It's amazing what can be done to help our wounded soldiers in this present age ... who would have dreamed this wonderful technology could ever happen in real life...

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This is technology at it's best, what it should be all about.

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Great to see a young man get back the use of a limb, well done to all concerned.

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These are the people that should be held up as heroes and any knighthoods going should go in that direction. My son showed me another last night but I'll start a different thread as not many seem to be taken with this poor soldier's good fortune.