by Alison Leon
25 October 2010
The ‘bionic’ Austrian man on whose car crash we reported last week has died in hospital.
Christian Kandlbauer, 22, never recovered from the serious injuries he sustained when his specially-adapted Subaru Impreza crashed last Tuesday, near the south-eastern city of Graz.
Mr Kandlbauer, a former mechanic, was fitted with a revolutionary robotic arm, plus a normal prosthesis, after he had lost both of his limbs in an accident aged 17. He had climbed up an electricity pylon and received a 20,000 volt shock, which resulted in a double amputation.
The arm, developed during a four-year research project, was controlled by Mr Kandlbauer’s neural impulses and in an interview earlier this year he told the BBC that
“This prosthetic feels like my own hand before the accident. With this hand I can feel again, I can detect pressure and vibration.”
He suffered brain damage in the crash and his life-support was switched off at the weekend. Police are not sure if the robotic arm was a contributor to the crash.