19 Year-Old Loses Arm To Alligator; Receives Prosthetic Arm Replacement

He had his arm ripped off by an alligator. Now, 3 months later, 19 year-old Kasey Edwards has a new life with a brand new arm.

It was June, Edwards swam across a Lake Okeechobee lock, only to have his arm ripped off by an 11 foot alligator. Back then, he said, "It felt like needle-nose pliers clamping down."

Once out of the hospital the 19 year-old began life with one arm. Today, Kasey says, "From the start I really tried to get things done with one hand and live with it like that and figured that that is predominantly how the rest of my life would be, just getting by with one arm and just making everything happen with that."

Then a surprise gift. A high-tech, almost robot-like, prosthetic arm. It was handed to him on the CBS 12 show, The Doctors, "It was just pretty emotional for me to actually get that and know that I was getting top of the line stuff."

Kasey now has one of only 300 arms like it, at no cost to him. It can do the same things his right arm can, just with a little added noise.

What about his favorite activities, like fishing and hunting? That's easy, just take off the hand and put on another attachment, "I can just keep singing praises about this arm all day, just how amazing the technology is and what they can do with it nowadays."

Kasey's left arm was ripped off just above the elbow, but he says this prosthetic has given him his freedom and his confidence back.

Kasey is attending Indian River State College with plans to head to Penn State next fall. He still has one more surgery to go on his arm to make his new arm fit perfectly.