Robotic arm helps Mount Vernon teen reach for goals

More fascinated with the technology than devastated by the loss of a limb, Caitlin Mills flips a switch on her robotic right arm.

Beep, beep.

Like a cell phone or a computer, it comes to life.

“It's a happy ‘I'm on' sound,” says Caitlin, 18, who lost her arm after a January car accident.

Since March, Caitlin has wrestled with the $100,000 device that has an electronic elbow, a battery pack in the forearm and a lifelike rubber hand that rotates around and around at the wrist.

“That's my party trick,” she says, laughing.

It's a trick the Coe College freshman majoring in art history will show dorm mates this week, as long as the arm behaves.

“Sometimes we get into arguments,” she says. “I want it to do something, and it would rather not.”

Whir. Click. Spin.

“It was just firing by itself,” she says.

“I wasn't doing anything ... It gets frustrating.”

When the sensors in the cuff align properly with the controlling flex of biceps and triceps in Caitlin's attaching limb, it is a thing of beauty.

“The first time I got it, it was one of the coolest things,” Caitlin says.

Since the accident, when the car she was riding in left icy Mount Vernon Road west of town and rolled over, Caitlin has remained unbelievably upbeat. Her friend survived. She survived.

Doctors tried to save her arm, but the elbow was crushed and the tissue too torn to rebuild.

During recovery, Caitlin missed more than a month of school, but with personal attention from teachers, she still graduated with her Mount Vernon High School class.

“It hasn't really affected my life, except I have this expensive accessory. I've been doing everything I'd normally do this summer,” she says.

That includes working as a lifeguard at the pool. She taught a young student born with one arm how to swim.

“I think we both learned some,” she says.

Unable to submerge the electronics, Caitlin swam with one arm, but she's excited to try out a new “flipper” arm.

“This is the first of my activity-specific arms,” she says. The lightweight attachment, like the robotic arm, was acquired through Advanced Arm Dynamics in Waterloo.

Other attachments - some added after simply unscrewing her hand - will allow her to wield a sharp kitchen knife, garden tools, even a hammer. She has learned to play the popular video game “Guitar Hero” with younger sister, Brenna, 12, and sees a limitless future with her robotic arm.

“I want to work in a museum,” Caitlin says, “so I don't think it's going to affect that either way. It's not like I was going to be a pro football player.”

On Sept. 7, she turns 19. Friends may pinch her for good luck, but she hopes her new hand, with 22 pounds of pressure between thumb and forefinger, doesn't.

“I know it hurts a lot,” she says, “if you accidentally pinch yourself.”