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VIENNA, Oct 23: An Austrian man who became the first person outside the US to wear thought-powered “bionic” arms has died from injuries sustained in a car crash, the hospital where he was treated said.
Doctors at the Medical University of Graz said they switched off the life support machines of Christian Kandlbauer in the night of Friday after determining he was clinically brain dead.Kandlbauer, who would have turned 23 next month, sustained severe head injuries when the specially modified car he was driving served off the road in the south east of Austria and crashed into a tree on Oct 19.
The cause of the accident is not yet known, particularly whether the neurally-controlled arm-prostheses he had been fitted with might have played a role.
Kandlbauer, a car mechanic from the south-eastern province of Styria, lost both his arms in September 2005 when he climbed a high-voltage electricity pylon as a dare.
Doctors fitted him with a prototype bionic arm for research purposes two years later and he became the first person outside the United States to wear such a high-tech prosthesis for everyday use in January 2009.—AFP
