Watch the video: Victim of dynamite explosion gets deceptively real prosthetic hand.
It’s been six years since Richard Vargas lost his hands. By a dynamite explosion. This is not uncommon in Bolivia. The explosive is used in many places. “It was August 15th, I don’t remember any more because I was in the intensive care unit for 15 days. When I woke up, I no longer had my hands.” After losing his hands, Richard Vargas also lost his job as a metal worker, became impoverished and faced social discrimination. But today he wears two prosthetic hands – hyper-realistic, deceptively real. Now no one stares at him anymore because he’s missing his hands. He also got his old job at the aluminum factory back. He also works as a stonemason and designs gravestones. To date, prostheses for Bolivia have largely been imported from Europe or North America. These cost thousands of US dollars – which can quickly equate to six years of Bolivian minimum wage. But then the Bolivian electromechanical engineer Antonio Riveras had an idea and founded the company Creotec. The artificial, hyper-realistic limbs are designed to match the age and skin tone of the wearer as closely as possible. “For example, this is a prosthesis for a 55-year-old person who is 1.60 meters tall and of course has a darker skin tone compared to me. These are not usually found on the market. I developed the technology and brought it here. Now we use plastic artists and anaplastologists to create these prostheses, very realistically.” His offer is aimed at low-income Bolivians. A prosthesis is available for around $300.