Prosthetic limbs can be a life-changing addition to an amputee’s life, so long as they can afford it. One Chinese farmer who couldn’t afford prosthetic limbs took it upon himself to create his own functional bionic arms.
Sun Jifa from China’s northern Jilin province lost his arms several years ago after a fishing explosive prematurely went off. Sun could only afford a low-grade pair of prosthetic arms, but their use was extremely limited. Sun then spent eight years building his own pair of bionic arms. “It transfers power from the natural movement of my elbow into the finger, allowing it to grab and hold,” said Sun during an interview with New Tang Dynasty Television.
Building your own functioning prosthetic arms would certainly be enough for anyone, but Sun then took his invention and turned it into a successful business as other amputees started to request their own versions of Sun’s prosthetics. In total, Sun has sold over 1,000 of his own prosthetics for around $490 each.