(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) - Haley Higdon has a smile on her face that doesn’t seem to go away – and she has a big reason to be happy. It’s all because of her new computerized robotic hand.
"I was kind of excited that I could have it now, I have been waiting like, forever" says Haley.
She’s been waiting since January, that’s when Haley was in a car wreck and lost the fingers on her right hand. She had been using a cosmetic hand, but now she has an upgrade.
Her Doctor says she shouldn’t have any problems adjusting. "She has two sensors one of them is right in the palm of her hand, the other is here in the dorsal surface on the top of her hand so that she can separate those signals. This one being to close, it's right here and she just fires that muscle and then she can separate it and fire this muscle and open her hand" says Dr. Randy Roberson.
Now Haley can do things with her right hand she didn’t think would ever be possible again, things many of us take for granted. "I picked up stuff with this, I picked up a ball and I picked up a cup and I grabbed somebody's nose and grabbed somebody's hair."
Haley can also shake hands, something she did with her mother for the first time using her prosthetic hand. "I'm just amazed when I first saw it, I was like, I had no words, I posted video of it on my Facebook page, I'm just totally amazed" says her mom Judie Cummings.
Haley says her goal is to learn how to throw a ball using her prosthetic hand. Her mother and doctor believe with her courage and determination that she’ll make it happen – smiling along the way.
