MickEbeling

I don't have to do anything for a Klondike bar. I print my own.

Money was definitely an issue. It's expensive enough just to to get humans to the Nuba mountains, then factor in buying and transporting and things added up quickly. We had to buy the printers, buy the filament for the printers, the tools to assemble the arms, the hardware for the arms, the plastic for the arms… etc. We knew that after we left there was not going to be an easy way for us to restock the raw supplies the hospital needed, so we had to buy enough supplies to last for a while. Lucky for us we got Precipart and Intel to underwrite the project so we could just focus on doing the work. Very grateful for that.

1. 3D printed limbs are available now, but you have to make them yourself or find someone to make them for you. I don't know of any commercially available 3D prosthetics limbs at this time.
2. It seems like prosthetics are coming down in price, but we always say that "normal" hospital prosthetics are usually $10-15K USD and higher. The prosthetics we made in the Nuba mountains we estimate costing about $100, not including the man hours and cost of the printer.
3. I don't do lower limb prosthetics.

I speak with Dr. Tom and some of the team from the Nuba mountains about every other week or so just to check in on them. Its not really possible for me to stay in touch with the people we made the prosthetics for because where they live there is no electricity, no internet and the people don't have access to computers or mobile phones. ... and then there is that issue of me not speaking arabic! ha!

While we were there, a young boy named Mubarek was admitted into the hospital. The Sudanese government did what they do every day and dropped bombs on civilian targets - this time Mubarek’s village. Mubarek had his arm blown off and I watched the amputation surgery. But the worst thing was that his 6 & 8 year old brothers were killed by the same bomb.

An amazing volunteer team (Tomo Kriznar, Ufos Strand, Jacob William) actually captured the live bombing of Mubarek's village. This video is very graphic so watch at your own risk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO0H1AYke2U

The sad thing is that this is reality of what is going on over there, and the reason I had to go to the Nuba mountains.