There are more than 2 million Americans who have lost an arm or a leg or were born without one. Millions more have health issues such as diabetes that could lead to amputation in the future.
NEWTON Breaking into a secure industry with a new product is hard to do, but a start-up, Newton-based company is trying to shift people’s paradigm. By using hemp instead of man-made products like plastic and fiberglass, the owners of Human Plant Solutions hope to change the fabric of prosthetics.
The inventor of this hemp-based product, Kyle Trivisonno, believes hemp is not only just as strong as the man-made products used for modeling legs and arms, but it is less itchy against the skin.
“Hemp is cheaper and less caustic,” Trivisonno said. “It’s a more sustainable material.”
Trivisonno, who is a board-certified prosthetic technician, has built more than 1,000 prosthetics with materials like acrylic resin, carbon fiber, thermoplastics and fiberglass. A few years ago, he decided to try to build a leg with hemp it worked.
The Kansan
Marc Dunshee shattered his left leg riding a dirt bike, an injury he was never able to fully recover from. He spent 10 years in pain, in and out of doctors offices, before he took what some would call a drastic action to end that pain.
He asked doctors to cut off his leg. He had to ask several times before doctors said yes, and scheduled a surgery.
And while that could have been the biggest life-changing moment in Dunshee s life, there was another one yet to come. He applied for a job at a business that made prosthetics, wanting to learn how to make his own leg.