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How Old Were You When You Experienced Finger, Hand or Limb Loss? : Our Patients’ Thoughts

Amber Henson
by Amber Henson
Feb 25, 2025

During patient interviews conducted over the past year, one of the questions we asked was, “How old were you when you experienced limb loss, and what are your thoughts about the time in your life when it happened?” Each patient had to think a moment and then described how the amputation affected them based on where they were at that age. The patients we spoke with were at various ages when their amputations happened, starting in their 20s and ranging into their 50s.

Our patient Isaiah, pictured below his quote, lost part of his hand in a work accident, and it was decided that a wrist disarticulation amputation would be the right level for him. His amputation occurred when he was 22. His thoughts:

It's a pretty pivotal time in your life, right? For me, it was quite a shock, quite a 180. I think I am grateful that it happened to me in my early 20s because I was like already an adult, and I've always been pretty sure of myself. It’s interesting, because, maybe in some ways, it was a good thing that happened to me. I think it was a good little reset. Like, you know, s***! Things can happen, and this thing happened to me. It definitely killed my confidence for a long time, like a good year and a half, and then over time I bounced back from that. I think there was a lot of character development that came with the whole thing. And I'm very grateful that it happened at that time in my life, as opposed to being older. I would imagine later would have posed more challenges. It would have made it a little bit harder to adapt. I think if I had to pick an age for something like that to happen, I would probably go with when it did, versus being earlier or later in life.

Isaiah G-1

John, seen below, was injured in an accident on his farm while harvesting corn. He lost his right arm above the elbow, and his left foot was almost severed, but surgeons were able to save it. John was 34 at the time of his accident. Here are his thoughts:

So at 34, I was pretty much halfway through my life. After my accident, I was laying in the hospital, wondering how I’m gonna continue to farm, if I was gonna be able to farm, and what I was gonna be able to do. You know it was pretty heart-wrenching when you work so hard to build the place up and get to a place in a business like this where you feel comfortable, and then something like this happens. When I got home, I just kind of started doing things slowly and the little bit that I could do made me feel good and time went on, you know, things got better and better. Once I got my prosthetic arm, that really changed a lot of things, but it took a long time and it’s still taking me time to get used to this and to figure out different ways to do stuff.  I went halfway through my life right-handed and now I’m gonna go halfway being left-handed and having a prosthesis.

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Our patient Angie, pictured at the top of this article, was in an off-roading accident that resulted in the loss of her pinky, ring finger and middle finger on her right hand. She was 36 at the time. Her thoughts: 

Having 36 years of using my hand and then having this life-altering change was difficult. I’ve thought about this before, and I feel like even when I talk to amputees, if they're younger, I would imagine it's easier. Because you can bounce back easier when you're younger. You don't bounce so much when you're older. But being 36 when it happened, if it had to happen at all, it probably was the best age to do it. Because I wasn’t super old at 36 and I wasn’t super young. I was mentally in a better space at 36 than I would have been at 26. And I was probably physically in a better space at 36 than I would have been at 46. So, it didn't seem to be good or bad at the age that I was. I had 36 years with 10 fingers. I got a lot done. Probably, in terms of where I was with my business, it couldn't have been at a better time. I own my own vacation rental cleaning business. I had and have a really good group of employees. And it actually happened during COVID, so there was less work happening. So, if it had happened when I was 26, when I was a veterinary technician, it would have completely changed my career. At that job, I needed my hands for everything. That would have been a lot, and not in a good way.

Gerry, pictured below, was a lineman who was electrocuted and lost both of his arms below his elbows. Gerry was 52 at the time of his accident. His thoughts:

You know, there's no good time in life to lose your hands. I mean, that's a given. There’s no good time in your life to lose any part of you. But it couldn't have been a better time in my life that it happened, if it had to happen. I had already got through a lot of life. I had already crossed many things off my bucket list. I had my kids raised and out on their own. So basically, that period in my life, I did not owe on anything. I had made it a personal goal of mine to be mortgage and debt free by the time I was 50 years old, and through a lot of hard work and sacrificing and not getting all the little thrills and bells and whistles and stuff, I was able to do that, so I did not have that to worry about at all. But, at 52, I was still young enough that I took right up with the prosthetics. I wanted to learn them. I wanted to be very good at them. Because I know how much easier that'd make my life if I got to be very good with them. So, 52, yeah, couldn’t have been better. Nobody wants it to happen. But if it had to have happened, it was an okay time. Everything that has come after my accident has been a gift. Honestly, that’s the way I look at it. Every day when I wake up. This is another gift – every time.

GerryCarSocial

There does seem to be a theme that regardless of the time in their life, these patients feel like it may well have been the best time in their life for their amputation to happen. We’re glad they feel this way.

Transitioning to life with limb loss can be made a lot easier with holistic prosthetic care. All of our patients benefit from their prosthetist, whose goal it is to fit them with a comfortable, functional prosthesis; and their occupational therapist, whose goal it is to get them back to the life they want to live by teaching them how to use their prosthetic device. Our clinical teams are supported by the rest of the team in their center and the Arm Dynamics team as a whole, and everyone’s goal is to provide optimal prosthetic care that allows our patients to Redefine Possibility.

If you or someone you know would like to learn more during a complimentary consultation, either in-person or via video chat, please contact us. If you would like to leave a comment for one of the patients above or us, please do so below.

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