Kyra Baker looked forward to being able to do the basic things that most people with two hands can do: Wash dishes, tie her shoes, ride a bike. But at the top of her list was to “learn to do my hair with two hands,” the 14-year-old says.
The Warsaw teen was born with a hand that never fully developed. There are fingers, but they don t have any bones.
She could have gotten a prosthetic when she was younger, but that would require doctors to cut off her fingers. And that, Baker says, was something she didn t want to do.
ANGOLA â Prosthetics can be a blessing for people who are missing a limb, but theyâre also very expensive.
That expense can make them impractical for children and adolescents who are constantly growing and changing. However, a senior design group of Trine University engineering majors completed a project this year that provided solutions for two teenage girls born without left hands.
With support from the Kosciusko County Community Foundationâs Helping Hands Fund, the team of Marissa Shaver, a biomedical engineering major from Fostoria, Ohio, Ben Avey, a mechanical engineering major from Pendleton, David Cervera, a biomedical engineering major from South Bend and Karina Bruce, a biomedical engineering major from Findlay, Ohio, designed low-cost prosthetics that will allow the girls to perform routine tasks such as curling their hair.