"I never felt like I fit in": The 17-year-old girl in need of a bionic arm after being born with limb deficiency

A teenager who felt she 'never fitted in' because she was born with a severe limb deficiency, meaning her right arm ended at her elbow, has now been offered the chance to have an electronic bionic arm made for her. Gemma Tomlinson, 17, from Bury, was born with the deficiency and has spent all her childhood battling with day to day tasks that are taken for granted.

Tying her shoelaces, putting on socks and chopping food in the kitchen are just some of the challenges Gemma faces every day. Ever since she was born, mum Julie said that she has faced difficulties that 'nobody else even thinks about' due to her disability.

However, deciding she wanted to learn to drive and join the police force gave the family some momentum, and they have now sourced a special prosthetics company in Bristol who could create a high tech bionic arm for Gemma and vastly improve her quality of life.

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Gemma, 17, said: "Growing up I always had to find different ways to do things, and noticed I was different from everybody else early on. I didn't feel I fitted in because nobody I knew had any sort of disability.

"I had two different prosthetic arms as a child, one of them was just for looks and it made it look like I had two hands, and the other was a heavier one that I struggled to use because I was so young.

"I am thinking of joining the police so it would help me with everything job wise, and I want to be able to do more day to day things like learning to drive."

Open Bionics, based in Bristol, develop medical devices that aim to give people with conditions like Gemma's, a shot at a more normal life. The Hero Arm is the world's first clinically approved 3D printed bionic arm according