Black Inventor Develops `Bionic' Arms for Florida Girl Born Without Arms

Jet, April 2, 2001

An 11-year-old Florida girl who was born with a congenital deformity that left her without shoulders, arms or hands was recently able to hug her mother for the first time using newly fitted bionic arms.

Diamond Excell received her new electronic limbs just in time for her 11th birthday. She took them home after a demonstration for the news media and the supporters who helped raise $60,000 toward the $70,000 cost. She'd already gone through a few test-fittings, during which she hugged her mother for the first time ever.

"It felt so good," said Delia Excell, Diamond's mother. "Words can't express the way I felt when she hugged me with those arms."

Born with a rare birth condition known as Robert's Syndrome, Diamond learned to use her feet as her hands, but thanks to the Yaeger Foundation and other kindhearted people, all that has changed.

The arms were devised with off-the-shelf parts by Ivan Yaeger, 33, of the Yaeger Foundation, a nonprofit family organization dedicated to programs in education, health and economic development. He came up with his first design for an artificial limb in junior high school for a science project.

Yaeger, who was responsible for the technology and the physical construction of the arms, worked with Eugenio R. Silva, a board-certified prosthetist at Advanced Motion Control, Inc. in Miami, to build, test and fit the artificial limbs.

Yaeger said some of the design elements were taken directly from his first design, which he patented while still in college.

"It's almost like we designed a custom car," Yaeger said. "We took the best of the best and our own chassis and body work and our own custom pieces."

Yaeger told JET that the "primary goal was to give her command of a work surface so that she could manipulate objects on a desk at school or on a table at home. We wanted the basic functions to be elbow, wrist and hand so that she could position objects, carry light objects and eat."

Yaeger plans to approach manufacturers in the artificial limb industry to develop the design.

Diamond's hands, modeled after those of one of her cousins, are covered with molded latex textured to simulate a real hand, with fingernails and tone that match Diamond's skin color.

The rest of the arm is covered with stocking-net material and has padding underneath to protect the electronics and cables inside. Silva will refit the arms with a more lifelike covering once she masters their use.

By twitching her back muscles, Diamond can open the joints; she closes them by flexing her chest muscles. Two sensors mounted on the harness that holds the arms to her torso allow her to switch between each joint.

The wrist can turn nearly all the way around and the elbows are designed so that they swing freely when Diamond walks.

Silva said the electronics in Diamond's arms probably will not need to be replaced for another four to five years, but the arms will need to be lengthened periodically as she grows into womanhood.

"The arms will never really be finished," Silva told JET. "It's an evolution."

With only a few weeks of testing, Diamond has not yet mastered how to extend her arms from their bent 90-degree angle; however, she will train for another few weeks, Yaeger stated. Currently, she can only wear her new arms for about an hour-and-a-half before she needs to take a break.

"She's going to show us a lot when she gets to physical therapy," said Yaeger. "She is so bright and such a fast learner that we're just standing back and watching her at this point."

For now Diamond can move her fingers and thumb together in a grasping motion, and pick up a bag by its handle. "It wasn't hard. It was easy," she said.

In a CNN interview Diamond said that she was looking forward to "riding a bike, learning how to write, learning how to get around the house better and to help my mom and my sister and my family out."

"Time will tell when she gets therapy in the future what she can do with her arms," her mother said. "She's strong and determined, and she has given me strength."