Girl gets bionic hands after surviving flesh-eating bacteria

A woman who had to have both hands amputated over a year ago after being infected with flesh-eating bacteria has now been fitted with high-tech prosthetic hands. The prosthetics allow her to perform a variety of tasks, from wiping tables and folding towels, to combing her hair with her artificial fingers, according to Discovery News and ABC News.

 

 

Aimee Copeland, a 25-year-old graduate student at the University of West Georgia, USA, is the first woman ever to receive iLimb Ultra Prosthetic Hands, following bilateral upper limb amputations. Because Copeland didn’t have the means to purchase them herself—each artificial hand cost $100,000—Touch Bionics in Hilliard, Ohio, opted to give them to her for free.

 

The technology behind the iLimb hands are the most advanced to date. They work by picking up signals from the muscles in the stumps, then transforming this information into 24 different types of hand movements.

 

The prosthetics allow for a great degree of dexterity; after only a week’s training in Hilliard, Copeland is now able to pick up potato chips and even something as small as a single, tiny pellet of the candy, M&M.

 

“It feels amazing, because you know, with the other arms I had, they really didn’t feel like an extension of my body,” said Copeland. “This just feels very freeing; it’s more light-weight. And the hand actually… it seems like this could be my actual hand.”

 

Surviving necrotizing fasciitis

 

In April 2012, a zip-lining accident near the Tallapoosa River in Georgia left Copeland with a massive gash on her left calf. After doctors sealed the wound with 22 staples, they prescribed medicine for the pain. The pain did not diminish, however, even progressing upwards to her thigh. More alarmingly, the wound wouldn’t heal.

 

Her leg eventually turned “a dark purple color,” according to Copeland. “I wasn’t able to walk,” she explained. “I wasn’t able to speak. The only thing I was able to babble was, ‘I think I’m dying.’”

 

When she was returned to the hospital, she was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis, otherwise known as flesh-eating bacteria syndrome or flesh-eating disease. This deadly bacterium destroys the lower skin layers and subcutaneous tissues.

 

Though the doctors initially gave her a dire prognosis, Copeland survived the ordeal. It cost her the affected leg, however. When her hands turned black later on, they too had to be amputated. She spent the next two months in hospital, followed by another two months of rehabilitation. She continued physical therapy upon her return to her home in Snellville, Georgia in late August, 2012. — TJD, GMA News