ORLANDO, Fla. – A local mom was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Her 6-year-old son was born without an arm. She said insurance wouldn’t cover it and buying one would cost thousands of dollars. So, Alyson Pring tried to print her son Alex a 3-D arm but didn’t know how.
She reached out to a UCF college student. Albert Manero and his friends got to work printing Alex Pring a new prosthetic arm and presented it to him just weeks later.
[TRENDING: Florida flight diverted after man accused of threatening passengers with box cutter | Father calls for answers after 18-year-old daughter found fatally shot in Sanford | Become a News 6 Insider]
Months after that Manero went the extra mile and created a new ‘Iron Man” inspired arm for Pring and even had the movie’s actor, Robert Downey Jr. present it to him.
Now eight years later Pring is in high school. His mother tells News 6 he is pursuing wrestling and weightlifting.
The former UCF student, Albert Manero is now the Co-Founder and President of Limbitless Solutions.
He tells News 6 anchors and Florida’s Fourth Estate hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden, “it’s been incredible to see the progress.”
“Being able to go from the kitchen table to now a full research facility here at UCF in just 8 years has been unbelievable and has been such a journey to get here,” Manero says.
Just last year, Manero says Limbitless Solutions moved into a new lab that “expanded our footprint about three times the size of our old lab.”
He says helping kids struggling with limb differences is incredibly rewarding.
“For us the most fun thing to hear is about how they are taking their bionic arm on the playground or to the grocery store and they come in with this beautiful either the bionic armor for one of their favorite characters or something more fashion oriented and it just completely changes the conversation around wearing a prosthetic.”
And, while this new building means more prosthetics for kids, it also means more experience for students at the University of Central Florida.
“We’ve actually grown our program of UCF under graduate students, working in their internships and research work with us, to now over 45 students a semester,” says Manero.
You can learn more about Limbitless Solutions, the prosthetics they create and how they are helping young kids with limb differences on Florida’s Fourth Estate.
You can download it from wherever you listen to podcasts or watch it anytime on News 6+.