A boy who lost four limbs to sepsis is fitted with a bionic arm

Fin Lawlor, 11, was fitted with a Hero PRO bionic arm from the Bristol company Open Bionics in the week of 4 September 2026, days before starting secondary school. He lost all four limbs to meningococcal septicaemia at the age of two.

The Hero PRO is myoelectric: sensors on the skin read the electrical activity of the muscles remaining in the residual limb and convert it into proportional movement of the bionic hand, so grip closes as far as the wearer’s own muscle signal asks it to. Nothing is implanted. Samantha Payne, Open Bionics’ co-founder, framed the timing rather than the engineering, saying it mattered that he was walking into secondary school with more independence.

The device is not a restoration of what was lost, and the company is careful not to say it is. A myoelectric hand offers a handful of grips and no sensation. What it changes is the set of things a child can do without asking, which at eleven is most of what independence means.

This is a single fitting, reported through a regional press agency rather than a clinical paper, and the numbers that would make it comparable — grip force, wear time, rejection rates — are not in it.