Meet Junior

Junior and his Mom, Thandi, saw Richard’s interview on eNews (the local TV station in South Africa) a couple of months back and Junior got very excited and asked his Mom to contact us and see if there was a possibility that he could receive a hand.

We have been in discussions since then and Junior finally arrived for his fitting. He is a very quiet spoken young boy of 9 years old. He loves to play soccer (football) and tennis at school. His Mom says that he’s even played rugby.

It was a very long day as Richard could not get any measurements before Junior arrived so could not pre-print a hand (which takes about 5 hours), but luckily after Junior was measured up, Richard disassembled a hand he had in stock that was the right size so could use that for Junior.

Due to the odd shape of Junior’s hand, Richard had to do some customising for the hinges and you will see from the picture above that it bends round the top of the hand cap.

In conversation with Thandi, Junior’s Mom, she had no idea while she was pregnant that there was a problem. Like so many children born with ABS, the parents have no idea until they see their child for the very first time. No one could tell her why or what his condition was called and through all these years she felt so guilty, that she had done something wrong.
Thankfully ABS is becoming a more well know condition and more spoken about among communities.

Junior has many friends and hopefully he will now become the coolest kid at school. He has to practice extensively to utilise just his wrist to get his new hand to open and close.

Thank you to Junior and Thandi for giving Robohand this opportunity of enabling Junior to use his hand.

Watch a video of Junior using his Robohand for the very first time: