Mystery donor helps UK boy get £10,000 bionic 'Iron Man' arm

A mystery donor has helped a UK boy after the latter was fitted with a £10,000 Iron Man arm, Mirror reported. Billy Greyson's dream of being able to cast his own fishing rod with his dad is finally coming true. According to the publication, the nine-year-old was born with an upper limb congenital deficiency, meaning his right arm is shorter than his left and has limited movement.

Billy had hoped that his arm would grow back so he could "be like his friends" and go fishing with dad Mark, 54, without needing his help. Billy's mother, Donna, began researching potential solutions and came across a leading prosthetics firm OpenBionics who could make a high-tech arm for him.

Due to the cost, the 49-year-old was forced to fundraise but was blown away when an anonymous donor later gifted them £10,000. After the device was fitted recently, Donna said Billy was “over the moon” and his confidence had “boomed”.

"He wears it for school every day. His face when he received it was a picture. He was over the moon. He said it's like Christmas. It was all he asked for," she told the outlet. Since his fitting, Donna said Billy is now learning how to use the arm to achieve his goals, which include fishing, one of his favourite hobbies.

This isn't the first time a kid has been fitted with an Iron Man bionic arm. In 2015, Hollywood actor Robert Downey Jr, who played the Marvel superhero helped a seven-year-old boy, Alex Pring, with a prosthetic arm. 

Tyler Petresky, director of resource management at Limbitless Solutions, was one of the 40 members on the Limbitless team who helped build an Iron Man themed arm for Pring, who was born with a partially developed limb. After eight months of development and redesign, the kid received his new arm from the Iron Man himself.

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