CHARACTER COUNTS

Five-year-old girl throws first pitch at Orioles game with prosthetic hand

Aug 17, 2015, 6:54 PM

Screen grab from Orioles.com

The Baltimore Orioles made a little girl’s dream come true on Monday night when they allowed five-year-old Hailey Dawson throw out the first pitch before their game against the Oakland Athletics.

What made the night special was the fact that she threw the first pitch with a robotic hand.

Dawson was born with a rare congenital disease called Poland Syndrome and wears a Flexy-Hand 2, which is a 3D-printed prosthetic device created by the UNLV engineering department.

Her right pectoral muscle is flat with her hand formed in a way that throwing a baseball would not be possible without the help of the robotic hand.

The girl threw the first pitch just a few feet from home plate to Orioles’ third baseman Manny Machado, which is Dawson’s favorite player.

Science can be pretty cool, especially in instances such as this when it helped make a little girl’s dream come true.

 

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Five-year-old girl throws first pitch at Orioles game with prosthetic hand