When you’re a 14-year-old you have all sorts of dreams – dreams to be a professional footballer, an international playboy or a multi-millionaire. But for Matthew James from Wokingham, his dreams were a little bit different... he wanted the ultimate bionic hand and enlisted the help of Ross Brawn and the Mercedes F1 team.
After being born with no hand, Matthew was fitted with a more basic bionic hand, which opened and closed, allowing him to grab things, “like a claw” as he says. But he longed for more movement and came across the i-Limb Pulse from Touch Bionics, which Matthew says has “five individual motors in each finger and therefore each finger can move individually".
Unfortunately the limb is not available on the NHS and costs £30,000 and despite fundraising efforts by friends and family, Matthew was unable to get anywhere near his target.
After Formula 1 boss Ross Brawn visited his school in Reading, Matthew decided to write a plucky letter to him, asking for his help and offering to have his new hand sponsored by Mercedes.
The F1 team invited Matthew to take a tour around the Mercedes factory, whilst one team member contacted Touch Bionics and managed to arrange for the £25,000 fee to fit the hand and train Matthew to use to be waived, whilst Mercedes were to help raise the rest of the funds.
Touch Bionics and Mercedes agreed to share the technology used in both the cars and the new arm as part of the agreement.
So those of you with an F1 Racing magazine subscription can be happy in the knowledge that the guys behind the sport are not afraid to pull together to help someone out.
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Posted by Andrew Burge