I’m Joey and I’ve worn a Hero Arm since August 2019. Since I was born without it its always been a part of my life so I never questioned it when I was little. I remember constantly trying to find work arounds for two handed tasks that kids my age often did such as tying shoes or playing with certain toys. In particular I remember the elaborate setups I created so that I could fire two nerf guns at once, or play two handed games on the Wii. I was never satisfied with hearing that I “couldn’t” or I “won’t be able to do it as well as the other kids”.
They quickly learned that If I wanted to do something, there wasn’t a thing in the world that could stop me. When I was in the fourth grade I started looking into prosthetics and I got fitted for a body powered split-hook prosthetic. I wore it for a few weeks and then never touched it again, all the years of finding my own way to do things made the hook feel cumbersome and burdening.
Then, one day I saw an advertisement for Deus ex Mankind Divided. In the ad, they mentioned how they were teaming up with a small company called Open Bionics to create low cost prosthetic arms. Hearing this got me so excited and hopeful, every day I would check to see if they were any closer to a final product. While waiting for the Hero Arm to come to the US my dad and I got impatient, so we built their developer hand, the Brunel Hand. We became quite knowledgeable about the arm and the technology used to make it, which was so freaking cool!