Somerset teenager wants a bionic arm to get into military
A 17-year-old girl is fundraising for a bionic arm so that she can try and get accepted for military servicePaige Cox from Wivielscombe in Somerset was born without a right hand and enjoys playing cricket and is a member of her local army cadet group. Ms Cox has been deferred by the military once before so is now fundraising for a bionic arm. While it will not guarantee her a military career, it will increase her chances according to her family. "It would make daily tasks easier. I often struggle with quite a few things. Having it would take a pressure off," Ms Cox said.
As an army cadet, she applied to be in the military, but was rejected for having one arm.She said she "didn't feel great" about the rejection, so she decided to try and get a bionic arm."It would make holding weapons easier, would make exercises easier, setting up tents, stuff like that," Ms Cox said.Ms Cox' dad John Cox, said: "I'm ex-military myself. It was disappointing that they wouldn't entertain the idea of more administrative roles, it was a straight no. I thought they could have been a bit more progressive."He added that he thought it was "amazing" that his daughter had decided to raise funds for a bionic arm.
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
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The Guardian
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One person who was receiving palliative care died within hours of the move. Soon after, the home in Lowdham – which housed 11 people with dementia and physical disabilities – went into liquidation. Staff lost their jobs and have been left with wages unpaid, and many residents are owed thousands of pounds in fees – people paid from £1,250 a week to live there. 'People must be held accountable for this. I don't think anyone who can run a home like this should be allowed to work in the care sector ever again,' said Gillespie, a corporate investigator more accustomed to turning his hand to international cases of public office bribery and fraud than care homes. He is compiling a dossier of evidence on what went wrong at The Firs and why it took so long to act on whistleblowing complaints, which he plans to submit to his local MP and the health secretary. 'I won't be letting the matter go, not just for my own relative and the staff who lost their jobs, but out of principle, because no one's loved ones or their families should have to go through this,' he said. 'I think this situation is so unique and appalling it needs to be looked at a higher level.' Emma Locking's 87-year-old grandfather, Tim, who has dementia, lived at the home. She said her family were shocked when they received a call at 5.30pm on a Friday saying the home was being shut down with immediate effect. 'Obviously my nan, at 85, was panicking, thinking: 'Oh my God, now he's homeless,'' she said. 'It was really stressful. It's awful for all the residents. These are people in their 80s and 90s. Some of them didn't even have family to help. I just think the way it was all handled was disgusting.' They had held concerns about the home for a while, particularly after Tim was left for 15 hours with an open wound on his wrist after a fall in December. His family said they were not informed of the seriousness of the injury until the next morning, when staff asked them to take him to hospital for stitches. When they arrived to pick him up, one staff member said the wound had been 'like a bloodbath'. 'I said: 'Why the hell did no one tell us this last night?' I would have taken him in. The wound was horrific,' she said. 'He's diabetic. He's on blood thinners. He's 87 years old. He could have died from that cut because he could have got sepsis. It makes you think: would he have been better off at home?' She said her grandfather's medication was not stored correctly and was often out of date, and he suffered two other falls at the home due to faulty or missing equipment. Her family considered raising concerns with the CQC, but worried about the repercussions for Tim while he lived there. The CQC report on the failures at The Firs found a number of serious safety breaches. 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BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Throat cancer patient praises new Salisbury District Hospital kit
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