A South Florida man's $150,000 prosthetic arm was stolen from his truck Sunday, but two off-duty police officers found it within a day, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
Chris Ruden was born with two fingers on his left hand, and his left arm is shorter than his right one. He also was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 19, the newspaper reported. A video of Ruden getting his new prosthetic last year was on social media.
Ruden is a motivational speaker. Sunday, he was preparing to create a video at his home in Coconut Creek for a motivational speech when he noticed the arm was missing from his truck. He called his girlfriend in Boynton Beach to see if he had left it there, the Sun-Sentinel reported. It was not there.
“When she said no, I lost it,” Ruden told the newspaper. “‘Limitations are self-imposed’ is my whole message. What sucks is someone else trying to impose their own limits on me.”
Two off-duty Boynton Beach police officers found the arm in some bushes. The pinky finger was broken, but the arm still functioned, Ruden told the Sun-Sentinel. Nothing else was stolen from Ruden's truck, and investigators are still looking for the thief.
Ruden's custom-fit, black carbon fiber arm was created by Touch Bionics. He does not have insurance, so he would have not been able to afford a replacement, the newspaper reported.
“When you have a Lamborghini for an arm, it’s a little expensive,” Ruden said, noting that finding the prosthetic was “the best case scenario.”
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