Over the past four years, Dan Didrick has sold his Rolex, his Porche, and his Naples villa - moved in with his girlfriend to save money and used milk crates as furniture to develop this:
What he’s done is create the first non-robotic prosthetic finger with a full range of motion, including being able to curl like a normal finger — a feat no other fake finger has managed.
The silver-and-cobalt-blue finger looks like something the X-Men might use, but there’s nothing comical in purpose of the $10,000 per-finger prosthesis. Didrick wants his invention on every injured hand of every soldier who has fought in Iraq and Afghanistan who needs one.
Since the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq began (through February 2007), there were nearly 1,000 soldiers with amputated fingers, toes and hands, according to a press release from the Department of Defense.
"They’ve given up their freedom and their independence so that we can have our freedom and our independence. We need to give back to them," Didrick says.
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/jun/11/gift_grip/ - via Random Good Stuff
I stumbled on his wonderful product as he is a graduate of the college my youngest daughter is now attending, and they ran a story on his invention.