'Amputated' Brit student fitted with revolutionary bionic hand

London, Jan 20 (ANI): A 19-year-old British student, who lost his left hand in a car accident, has got a new lease of life after he was fitted with the world's most advanced prosthetic limb- i-Limb.

i-Limb is a fully functional prosthetic arm which can be controlled by electronic muscle signals from the remaining part of the limb.

Evan Reynolds, the sports biology student at University of the West of England (UWE), in Bristol, was the second person in Britain to be fitted with the advanced i-LIMB hand.

Reynolds the resident of Haslemere, Surrey, said he adapted to the product in just a few minutes.

The innovation boasts five independently powered digits, which operate like a human hand when closing around an object.

Reynolds was a rugby-player, who had dreamed of joining the Army and going to Sandhurst, had his left hand ripped off when a friend drove him home following a day out.

Developed by a Scottish company, Touch Bionics, the i-Limb has won awards for its innovative technology.

And the total cost including the hand itself and the fitting is about 30,000 dollars.

Reynolds was fitted with the i-Limb after his older brother Richard saw a television report about the product and contacted the manufacturer.

While the firm was still working on a prototype at the time, but following a number of tests and meetings with prosthetic specialists, Reynolds had the i-LIMB fitted in February last year.

"The most amazing thing about it was how quickly I adapted to it. People always ask how it's changed my life, but there's no specific thing," The Telegraph quoted him as saying.

He added: "It's the hundreds of everyday things you take for granted, which I can do again, like peeling a potato, catching a ball, holding a bottle of water. I'm incredibly grateful.

"It's so sensitive I can grip a bottle of water or a paper cup without crushing it, and even swing a racket. All I have to so is imagine picking something up or gripping it and the fingers and thumb move automatically." (ANI)