Mike’s bionic hand gives him 50 different grips

Mike Duke is looking forward to playing badminton with his children again after being fitted with a bionic hand.

While its arrival will be lifechanging for the 54-year-old whose right hand was ripped off in a Timaru workplace incident almost two years ago, he says he has adapted to life with a stump.

Duke lost his right hand when it became entangled in a screw conveyor on March 17, 2017 – halfway through his fifth day working at Timaru’s Alliance Smithfield meat processing plant.

He has re-learned to play bass guitar with his stump and can write with his left hand, and has no plans to adapt those actions with the new technology.

‘‘It [the bionic hand] is what I expected. I’m not expecting it to improve my quality of life too much, just my hobbies and that.

‘‘It’s still my pot of gold at the end of a long process.’’

Building in his workshop is now much easier and Duke is able to lock onto a nail with his bionic hand and hammer away with his left.

While he is disappointed to find the technology will not help him get back on a motorcycle, he has plans to attach a throttle to the left handlebar of his existing model.

‘‘I’ll make it work because I want it to work. There’s always a way,’’ he said.

The bionic hand, zipped to Duke’s wrist, has 50 grips he can switch between using an app on his phone – different settings allowing him to hold a cup, or type with two hands on the keyboard, or even shake hands with someone.

It reacts to movements in his arm and signals sent from the brain to his stump.

Learning the technology was easy but mastering it would take time, he said.

‘‘I can’t believe how comfortable it is, but if I use it too much I get serious cramp.’’

Duke was working alone for the first time in March last year, reaching into a machine which was part of the blood drying process, to clear blockages, when his hand was amputated by a rotating screw.

Alliance Group Ltd was fined $332,000 for breaching the 2015 Health and Safety at Work Act and, of its own accord, paid reparations to Duke including $173,000 for a bionic hand.

Duke will return to work at Smithfield sometime next year but would not know what the job was until his capabilities with the bionic hand were assessed.