Hasta La Ideas

The worst thing I ever saw on YouTube was a guy accidentally taking his thumb off with a tablesaw. I used to drive an ambulance and I saw some pretty horrific things, but it is that video that still sometimes gives me trouble sleeping.

Now I’ve finally come across some videos that make up for the aforementioned one. Here’s the background: Richard Van As, a woodworker from South Africa, lost his fingers in a woodworking accident.

Instead of giving up hope and resigning himself to never having fingers again, he went in search of someone that might be willing to help him replace them. After finding himself faced with having to come up with $10,000 per finger for commercially available prosthetics—he decided to search for someone that could help make a set of his own.

He found a Washington-State-based propmaker named Ivan Owen, who created a mechanical device Van As could use to manipulate fine items. Here’s a video of Richard testing the device:

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