Bone blunder

Lacking body parts can be costly for persons with disabilities (PWD).

Canadian motivational speaker Talli Osborne, 44, was able to purchase a secondhand car for greater mobility. However, it would cost $100,000 to modify her fuschia Mini Cooper so she could drive it.

Osborne, who was born without arms and with short legs, couldn’t afford it. But determined to achieve her dream, she kept paying for the car and its insurance. Then the charity organization War Amps, which provides child amputees financial assistance for artificial limbs, reached out to her and paid for the modification, the New York Post (NYP) reported.

The PWD can now drive the car with its five-inch-diameter steering wheel mounted on the left door with a cup that could be used to turn it, extended gas and brake pedals, a touch screen for changing gears and signalling, and a seatbelt that Osborne can strap on by herself, according to NYP.

Fernando Cluster of Georgia, USA was not so lucky. He was admitted to Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta in September 2022 after he suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage or bleeding in the brain. Doctors had to temporarily remove part of his skull to reduce the pressure and save his life, NYP reports.

When it was time to restore the 4.7-by-6 inch piece of his skull two months later, doctors could not find it in a pile of unidentified bone fragments from other patients. The hospital fabricated a synthetic piece of skull that doctors inserted in November to cover the depressed side of Cluster’s head. He was billed over $19,000 for the fake bone.

The synthetic bone, however, caused an infection that needed another operation and a medical leave from work. Cluster’s bill ballooned to $146,800.

On 8 August, Cluster sued the hospital, seeking damages and the waiving of his hospital debt for its negligence.