3D-Printed Prosthetics Are Helping Refugees Get Back on Their Feet
Before he fled Syria, Ahmed Hasna, then an undergrad at Damascus University, was majoring in math. He’d never heard of 3D printing. But after a bomb blew his leg off on a battlefield southwest of Damascus, he was outfitted with an artificial leg.
Four years later, Hasna is also a 3D-printed prosthetics technician. “I’d heard of 3D, and I’d heard of printing, but never together,” he says.
Hasna uses his experience as a war survivor and a prosthetic technician to teach fellow amputees about the ways 3D printing can provide practical solutions for disabled refugees.
“It’s not science fiction anymore,” says Hasna, explaining how prosthetic hands can be printed in just a few hours and for as little as $50. “The hardware is getting cheaper, [and] the tech everyday is expanding exponentially.”
Six years ago, when his country erupted into brutal and unceasing civil war, Hasna quickly volunteered his services as a paramedic at a makeshift field hospital in a rebel-held battlefield near the capital. When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces shelled Hasna’s ambulance in a bloody attack that took several lives as well as his leg, Hasna became one of Syria’s 5 million refugees who were forced to flee the country. Manar, a nurse and Hasna’s close friend at the…
