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Paralyzed Man Unable to Walk After Maker of His Powered Exoskeleton Tells Him It's Now Obsolete (futurism.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A former jockey who was left paralyzed from the waist down after a horse riding accident was able to walk again thanks to a cutting-edge piece of robotic tech: a $100,000 ReWalk Personal exoskeleton.

When one of its small parts malfunctioned, however, the entire device stopped working. Desperate to gain his mobility back, he reached out to the manufacturer, Lifeward, for repairs. But it turned him away, claiming his exoskeleton was too old, *404 media *reports.

"After 371,091 steps my exoskeleton is being retired after 10 years of unbelievable physical therapy," Michael Straight posted on Facebook earlier this month. "The reasons why it has stopped is a pathetic excuse for a bad company to try and make more money."

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[–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

That’s true for consumer electronics. However, more expensive things like cars are usually kept running for much longer.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Cars are probably covered differently by law, like minimum years producer has to offer replacement parts and such. Probably all boils down to the contract for that exoskeleton. Definitely not an excuse for that petty company trying to suck tens of thousands of dollars instead of a simple repair.

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