When Jacob Scrimshaw came home from school in tears his mom decided to start a fight for something she never thought she’d have to do.
The 5-year-old boy was born prematurely and with part of his left arm missing. Jacob handled life like the brave boy he is until one day he came home from his school in England crying saying he was fed up of trying to do everything with just one arm.
Mom Gemma Turner decided she had to do something about it but knew she had a long, expensive and difficult road ahead of her.
But thanks to a successful GoFundMe campaign and a little-known talented engineer spotted on social media, Jacob can now hug his brother thanks to his new green Hulk robotic arm.
When Jacob’s mom Gemma saw him so upset she and his dad Chris were spurred into action.
“I always thought Jacob coped well without his arm and got on with things, but when he came home from school in tears I knew we had to do something,” she told Unilad.
Had to create an elbow
“We started raising money on GoFundMe. I knew what we wanted would cost an awful lot of money. We thought we would have to go to America.”
In 7 months the family, from West Yorkshire, had raised over $20,000 but they still had the hard task of finding a prosthesis to stay attached to the upper arm as an elbow joint has to be created.
But a chance find on Instagram connected the devoted parents to a talented engineer who had been inspired to devote his time to making prosthetics after his own son lost his arm at just ten days old.
Ben Ryan, from Wales, a former psychology teacher, created his own company called Ambionics and started his son using the prosthetic arm he had created from five weeks old; his son had even learned how to crawl wearing it.
First patient
Ryan, who is also director of Glaze Prosthetics UK, created Jacob’s revolutionary new arm in just 12 weeks and on December 12 he was fitted with his green, hulk arm.
Jacob, who is one of their first patients, is now able to hug his three-year-old brother and can even push his baby sister around in her stroller.
“Jacob loves his arm. He is still getting used to it but it is great, we are thinking it will be fab at Christmas when he’ll be able to open his presents with two hands,” Gemma said, according to Unilad.
On their fight to never give up in getting their son the arm he so desperately wanted Gemma said: “We always wanted more as Jacob didn’t want a non-functioning arm just to look like everybody else, he’s not bothered about that.”
Helps children adapt earlier
Ryan said the technology was there, parents just needed all the information and Jacob’s parents never gave up, even when they were told by doctors it wouldn’t work for him.
“Our super lightweight and highly durable arms enable infants to adapt to prosthetics earlier in their neural development than ever before,” he added.
I love that Jacob’s parents never gave up and now Jacob can do all the things he wants to do thanks to their determination and a very talented engineer!
Please SHARE to wish Jacob the best Christmas opening his presents with his new superhero arm.
