Mexican man builds his own prosthetic leg for $4

Acapulco —  An ingenious man in Mexico said he built himself a prosthetic leg out of construction material for the equivalent of $4.

Martin Amaro said he was driven by his desire to get back to work to manufacture a limb out of polyvinyl chloride, a material commonly used in pipes.

He developed the prosthesis for his left leg, which he lost around eight years ago after a home accident.

“What I wanted was to keep working because it’s not easy,” the 55-year-old, from Acapulco, told Efe.

Amaro suffered burns to his left leg in a kitchen accident which were complicated by diabetes and he was finally admitted to a hospital where his limb was amputated.

He was 48 years old at the time and spent months in a wheelchair after leaving hospital before realising it did not fit with his lifestyle.

He had also lost his job in the maintenance department of a hotel.

Amaro said he was an active person who liked to work and was limited by the amputation.

“I saw that a person went through with a prosthesis and I gave myself an idea, I tied myself up and then calmly, I put it on, I adapted it,” he said.

He currently does gardening, plumbing, pool cleaning and errands and is able to drive a motorbike.

Although he needs to renew the prosthesis that he currently uses, he said that even though he has a stable job, it is not enough to be able to buy a new one.

“It was not easy because I felt annoyance, but I adapted because that was my prosthesis an imitation, the resources did not exist and they were very expensive, they gave me more than 20,000 pesos (around $1,056),” Amaro added.

He said he was in a dilemma that it was more feasible to make a tube leg than buy a prosthesis.

In 15 percent of Acapulco households there is a person with a disability, and 99 percent of them do not have a source of work where they can obtain income that covers their basic needs.

Amaro became famous on social media, by demonstrating the ingenuity he had in building a leg that allowed him to continue working.

A number of people contacted him and his tube legs were sent to various parts of Mexico, including Veracruz, Chihuahua, Lázaro Cardenas and the Mexican capital.

By Salma Kaufman