Imagine being born with a missing limb — a missing finger, hand or arm. Or imagine getting into an accident and becoming an amputee. These things might seem hard to imagine, but it’s what many people have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

This is what Chad Coarsey, FAU bioengineering graduate student, had to deal with everyday. Being born with a congenital amputation, Chad was born with knuckles but no fingers. This was something that he learned to live with until a fellow classmate, Charles Weinthal, offered him a hand, literally.

After developing the first functioning model made by using a 3-D printer for Coarsey as part of a class project for their Intro to Mechanical Engineering class, Coarsey and Weinthal started the Bionic Glove Project: a nonprofit organization that builds mechanical hands for people who need them.

According to the Bionic Glove Project’s website, one in 5,000 people is born with diminished hands. And according to the Amputee Coalition, 185,000 amputations occur in the United States each year.

But thanks to technology, creating new prosthetics can be a big help for people with missing limbs. The price of a new prosthetic hand ranges from about $3,000 to $30,000 according to Christian Blind Mission, an Australian charity dedicated to serving people with disabilities.

“Eleven-million people are born with a birth defect that cause them to have missing limbs,” Weinthal said. “With this way of developing hands we are able to help a large amount of people, as opposed to helping a lot less if we were to develop electrical prosthetics. This way more people will be able to afford having a hand. If I had the option of helping a large amount of people or one, I’d choose the large amount”.

Weinthal said it takes six to 10 hours to print the parts and about two hours to put the parts together. They’re easily manufactured in case a person needs a new glove, for instance, outgrowing the glove or the glove getting damaged.

With the help of the nonprofit Quantum Foundation, which helped Weinthal and Coarsey buy a 3-D printer, they were able to to start the Bionic Glove Project that hopes to help more people in need.

“The project has already helped four people, there’s six people currently waiting to be helped and we hope to help many more” Coarsey said.

One of those beneficiaries was Damba Koroma, whose arm was cut off by rebels during the civil war in Sierra Leone.

The price for a new bionic hand is about a few hundred dollars. Weinthal said he hopes to donate hands for the people who can’t afford them, and sell a more affordable option for others.

With the money raised by selling the 3-D hands, Weinthal and Coarsey hope to develop new technology and improve the bionic gloves throughout the years.

“I always knew I wanted to make a change for the better, I just didn’t know how. When this project came along, especially since it’s something I have a connection with, I couldn’t let it pass by, I hope the project becomes an everlasting legacy” Coarsey stated.

You can find out about the nonprofit and its services by visiting their website.

Nicole Pujazon is a contributing writer with the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet her @nicolepujazon.