Jack Carder is just 5 years old, but the kindergartner threw out the first pitch of a baseball game on April 21 thanks to a prosthetic hand much like the one utilized by the comic book hero Iron Man.
The young athlete was born with only a thumb on his right hand, but the Columbus, Ohio, native learned to love sports at an early age.
In addition to sports, the young boy also has a great love of superheroes and loves to pretend he possesses superpowers in real life. This combination of factors inspired the design based on the fictional Iron Man character.
"He's just an amazing little boy. He loves sports, he plays T-ball, he plays soccer," Laura Carder, mother of the young athlete, said.
The mother contacted e-Nable after she read a story on how the group created an artificial arm for another boy.
Carder threw out the pitch for the Triple-A Columbus Clippers, a minor league team in the Cleveland Indians system. Baseball teams at the Triple-A level play just one organizational level beneath the major leagues and are often visited by well-known athletes recovering from injuries or performance slumps.
The artificial hand was developed for Carder through the cooperation of the Siena College chapter of the nonprofit foundation e-Nable. The 13 college students who took part in developing the comic-themed hand are members of the Siena chapter of e-Nable in Albany, N.Y. Members of the group presented the hand to the young boy at his daycare center in Lewis center, a township in Ohio. The Siena e-Nable group considers itself to be part of the Franciscan community, striving to aid the poor and marginalized, specifically by assisting people without limbs.
"We will utilize this educational background to benefit and promote the health of others, specifically those who are, or who have become, upper-limb amputees," the group wrote on its Facebook page.
This prosthetic hand can not only be used for playing sports but will also allow the boy to participate in regular tasks, such as picking up crayons and markers. The device was manufactured through the use of a 3D printer and even contains a glow-in-the-dark "laser" in the palm to further simulate the mechanical hand of the superhero.
Iron Man, a metal-clad crime fighter whose real name is Tony Stark, made his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39, dated March 1963. In the story, created by comic legend Stan Lee, the billionaire Stark suffers a debilitating chest injury during the course of being kidnapped, and he creates a mechanical suit of armor that allows him to escape his captors and go on to a life of fighting evil. The character is a member of the team The Avengers and has been played onscreen by Robert Downey Jr. since 2008.
