Chicago ’s Willis ( formerly “ Sears ” ) Tower is one of the tallest skyscrapers in the cosmos — and yesterday it was scaled by amputee / bionic - badass Zac Vawter .
Vawter had help , of course , albeit in a truly revolutionary form . In a biotechnology first , the 31 - year - old — who fall back his right leg in a 2009 motorcycle stroke — scale all 103 of the building ’s floors with the tending of what researcher call the world ’s first neural - controlled bionic leg .
confidential information researcher Levi Hargrove toldThe Chicago Tribunethe prosthesis work by respond to electrical sign given off by muscles in Vawter ’s upper pegleg , “ where the sawbones who amputated his wooden leg reattached the dangle nerves that previously carried signals past his knee ” :
The function , known as aim muscle reinnervation , allowed Hargrove and his squad at the [ Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ’s ] Center for Bionic Medicine to tap into the maintain neural sign to hold in the prosthetic limb .
“ He just thinks about move his ankle , ” Hargrove say as an example . “ He thinks about doing those movements and the signals journey down the spunk and are redirect onto hamstring muscle . The dead body does n’t roll in the hay that the ankle is not sign . It is very intuitive for him . ”
What ’s really mind be adrift is how quickly Vawter managed to surmount the tower . For a healthy , fully - intact individual , the middling step - climb at Willis Tower ( all 2,109 step of it ) takes upwards of thirty second . Vawter did it in 45 , beating out plenty of other four - limbed climber participating inSunday ’s annual SkyRise Chicago Tower Climb — not bad at all for the world ’s first neurally controlled crural prosthesis .
“ We were testing the leg under uttermost condition , ” say Joanne Smith , the Rehabilitation Institute ’s CEO , in a statement . “ Very few patients who will use the branch in the future will be using it for this purpose . From that perspective , its carrying into action was beyond bill . ”
Read more atThe Chicago TribuneandThe Telegraph .
bioengineeringHealthMedicineProsthesisScience
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