New roles as husband and dad for doub THE BIO ONIC DAD
BRAVE James Young has every right to be smiling in these lovely family photos.
The double amputee has been transformed from the bionic man into a bionic dad and husband.
After years of struggle he can settle into the new roles with his wife Ashley and their 14- month- old daughter Elara.
Nearly eight years ago his life was changed for ever by a freak accident on a night out with friends.
James, then 22, fell under a Docklands Light Railway train in East London after stepping too close to the tracks as it pulled in.
He said: “I lost my left foot at the scene, it was never found.
“A couple of hours after arriving at hospital, surgeons were forced to remove the remnants of my left arm in order to save my life.”
He was put in a medically induced coma for two weeks and his left arm needed to be amputated to below his left shoulder.
It has been a long road to recovery, with enormous physical and mental challenges, and James, 30, has yet more obstacles to overcome to manage his injuries.
But in the past two years he has been focused on Ashley and Elara.
He said: “It’s been soul-enriching to be lucky enough to meet the love of my life and start a family with her.”
James, who lives in Stratford, East London, hit the headlines in 2016 when he was given a bionic arm for a BBC documentary, which is where Ashley, from the US, first noticed him.
Incredible
A mutual friend suggested James volunteer at a youth amputee camp in America and when he asked if there was someone he could stay with, she suggested her friend Ashley.
“Ashley was already following me on Twitter,” James laughed. “It was kind of creepy. She had been watching my documentaries with some friends and told them, ‘I’m going to marry that guy.’ Which is kind of crazy.”
Ashley put him up and they hit it off straight away but the distance between them when James returned to the UK and the fact she was supposed to marry someone else were problems.
James said: “Ashley was engaged at some point during the year we met. We thought it was a bit of a fantasy with the Atlantic in between us,but that year we talked constantly.
“When she got engaged it just didn’t feel right. So, one day, I told her I was filming a show in Spain and I got on a plane to America and surprised her for her birthday. It was a done deal after that. We were in love and carried on.”
Ashley ended her previous relationship and fell head over heels for James.
They got married in America two years ago and now live in London with Elara, who was born at home.
He said: “We had amazing on- call midwives and had a home birth in our lounge. Ashley did amazingly. We had a 12-hour labour. It was incredible.
“She had no pain relief, she would say now that she didn’t need it and would do it again. Her mum was there too, holding her up in the pool and we were rubbing her back for hours and hours.” James admits he struggled with being a dad at first, particularly because he couldn’t share the bond Elara had formed with Ashley.
He said: “It It was hard at the start. I was as kind of jealous, I felt I didn’t have the he same hormonal al connection with her.
“I think I was jealous in a way that the baby y didn’t need me in the same way.
LOVED UP: Tender moment for the couple
She was unhappy with my smell and me being bony and skinny.
“When she’d cry it would really get to me and I got down. But I cracked on and things improved.”
Now Elara is far more comfortable with James and knows which bits of him she can hold on to – she even enjoys putting her toys on his stump.
He said: “She is learning my body and how to adapt to me.
“She is amazing, so smart and capable. She communicates with us really well. We just love her.”
Ashley also has a missing limb
To meet the love of my life and start a family has enriched me
because she was born without her right forearm.
The couple both use their skills for good, doing whatever they can to represent limb difference.
James said: “Ashley was like this from birth, she is much more driven and has empathy around wanting to help kids feel more comfortable.
“I’m much more suited to speaking to teenagers who have had an accident and a change of circumstances, whereas she has the ongoing thing of people who have had it since birth.
“We’re super different. I can do loads of stuff she can’t do, and she can do loads of stuff I can’t do.”
One of the most infuriating things for the couple is when strangers try to intervene when they’re out with Elara.
James said: “We don’t care what other people think when it comes to doing things in public one-handed.
Skeleton
“Lots of people are like, ‘Oh we need to help you.’ That’s the worst bit – when people look at us with pity.
“We live our lives in these bodies and they’re completely normal to us, we have figured out how to do what we want to do with life.”
The young family is thriving, but the cyborg arm he was fitted with in 2016, kitted out with a laser light, a USB port and even a drone, was more artistic than practical. Bionic man James is now busy fund- raising for the development of pioneering osseointegration surgery, OI.
This allows the integration of a bionic limb or prosthesis directly into a skeleton, giving far greater freedom of movement and dramatically reducing pain.
He said: “This procedure would implant my bones with titanium implants which allow me to bolt on an artificial limb in seconds, with potentially zero discomfort once healed.
“Losing limbs doesn’t just mean a bit of your body is gone.
“You are constantly second-guessing how far you can walk what you can do and for how long. My life is controlled by planning around the limbs. Some days you just won’t even go out because you can’t face that obstacle today, or you are worrying, budgeting a bit too much.
“It’s a constant measuring game and also a game of fear, or if not fear, it is at least an uncertainty.”
James is currently on an advisory board of a pioneering medical tech company and is in touch with OI teams in the UK, but the treatment is expensive.
“It’s in the back of my mind every day that I need to address the problems I have, more than ever, to keep up with my daughter as she grows.”