LOOK, I CAN PINCH HER NOSE!

He lost his hand in a firecracker accident – now Kosie is learning to use his prosthetic hand

T WAS a week of firsts for Kosie Wessels. He went 10-pin bowling, saw a 3D movie “with those funny glasses” and had a blue milkshake at Spur. More than one, actually.

But all these events pale in comparison with the day the seven-year-old received his new hand. “Kosie managed well with his stump,” says his mom, Caroline Strydom (39). “But the hand will make things easier.”

He’d previously worn a test prosthesis and measurements were taken for the final hand. Now he has it – and it’s helping to make the nightmarish ordeal he suffered in September more bearable.

It’s been more than two months since Kosie found a firecracker in 17-year-old sister Annabelle’s room and lit it with a match. The cracker exploded in his left hand, causing so much damage surgeons had to amputate it (YOU, 22 September).

But thanks to the generosity of Good Samaritans he now has a prosthetic hand – and he’s adapting to it like a trooper. Kosie quickly fetches it to show us how it works and shrugs off his mom’s offer to help him attach the hand. “No, I want to do it myself,” he says firmly.

After he’s put it on he inches his hand towards his mom’s nose and starts pinching, laughing infectiously when Caroline makes silly noises.

IBy HILDA VAN DYK Pictures: LUBABALO LESOLLE T HASN’T been easy for Kosie, who’s in Grade 1 at Piet Hugo Primary in Polokwane, Limpopo. “The kids teased him and said he looked like Captain Hook,” Caroline says. “One child pulled the bandage off. Stitches came loose and had to be removed. When he came home from school he was in tears.”

The tip of the stump is still sensitive and Kosie often cries when someone touches it. And he still has nightmares.

Caroline has also had challenges. “People said I was negligent but I wasn’t,” she says. “You can’t watch your child 24 hours a day.” She lost her job at a local daycare centre because she had to take so much time off to care for Kosie.

The single mom of five – three of whom are disabled – receives a social grant with which she supports her family.

But thanks to kind-hearted people Kosie has everything he needs to aid his recovery. Initial costs of R70 000 were raised by Amor Schoeman of the Child

SMedi Organisation, which arranges for critical medical help for needy kids.

A team of prosthetists donated their time to create Kosie’s hand at cost price and Edna de Beer of Eagle’s Rest guesthouse, where Kosie and Caroline stayed to be near his medical team, spoilt Kosie.

The little boy has a long road ahead, prostethist Gerhard Swart says. He’ll need physio and occupational therapy and will have to undergo biokinetic treatment to help his hand to become more mobile.

“Everything depends on how often Kosie wears the hand and how well he learns to use it,” Swart says. “He should be able to pick up small things with his thumb and forefinger and hold a small glass or pen in his hand. As he gets used to it he’ll be able to wear it more often.”

The socket – the part that fits around Kosie’s arm – should last about a year, depending on how fast he grows, and more money will be needed for therapy and for a new socket when he’s older.

But the first hurdle has been faced – and cleared by miles. MORE ON YOU. CO.ZA TO SEE KOSIE TRYING OUT HIS NEW HAND GO TO YOU.CO.ZA AND SEARCH FOR “KOSIE”.