WORCESTER, Mass. - A Texas student who lost two fingers in a car crash -- may be able to regain full use of her hand -- thanks to students at WPI.
The students and their professor, Marko Popovic, are developing a partial hand prosthetic for Payton Heiberger. They learned of her injury in 2019 and took on the project of developing a prosthesis.
The team was able to develop a prototype, which they say doesn't really exist elsewhere.
Heiberger lives in Texas, but has been able to visit the team in Worcester twice to test it out. She has plans to become a plastic surgeon.
“She’s adapted really well to it. I know that she has been practicing doing sutures and other things that she’ll need for plastic surgery with her left hand,” said student Mia Buccowich.
“They looked for prosthetics for her to have in the meantime, but they don’t exist so that’s why we’re doing this,” said student Andy Strauss.
“Seeing her go through her daily life still using her what’s left of her hand kind of shows that our competition isn’t nothing. It’s what she can currently do with her injured hand, which is surprisingly a lot,” said student Brian Fay.
The team said they are about halfway complete with the final project.