Austria's 'Bionic Man' Dies In Car Crash

euphemistic writes "An Austrian man who became the first person outside the US to wear thought-powered 'bionic' arms has died from injuries sustained in a car crash ... Kandlbauer, who would have turned 23 next month, sustained severe head injuries when the specially modified car he was driving swerved off the road in the south east of Austria and crashed into a tree on October 19. The cause of the accident is not yet known, particularly whether the neurally-controlled arm-prostheses he had been fitted with might have played a role."

Comments

I wonder...

[zoom-ping]

... if pirates ever crashed ships into rocks, cliffs etc because of their 'bionic' limbs.

Re:I wonder...

[T Murphy]

If by "bionic" you mean "rum", and by "limbs" you mean "more rum", then the answer is yes.

Austrian Cyborgs?

[zippthorne]

Where have I heard this story before...

Olympic Games deja vu

[chrism238]

Great to see that [Australia] is firmly in the tags for this story.

Re:Olympic Games deja vu

[12WTF$]

Correction: Sidney Mourning Harold

I hadn't heard about these.

[mirix]

Interesting. I presume there software involved here?
Any details on how the system works?

Wouldn't be the first time a bug killed someone, but he could have just dozed off too...

Re:I hadn't heard about these.

[AnonymousClown]

OR he could have been passing some hot chicks in scant outfits and thought, I need to go talk to them forgetting he was driving down the road.

OR....seeing the hot chicks, he thought of doing something else with that bionic arm of his on another part of his body and due to a glitch in the message queue for his arm, the arm immediately started doing what he wanted to do on his extremity - the hand made a fist and the arm started jerking up and down very rapidly on the steering wheel causing him to lose control of the vehicle.

Austrian Wildlife to Blame

[Hoarse Whisperer]

Recent updates to the story via the Slashdot tagging system suggest that he may have swerved to avoid a Kangaroo, a common cause of accidents in South Eastern Austria.

Doesn't at least a part of you want to know...

[oliverk]

...if they can rebuild him?

An interesting motto

[tftp]

his motto was: "Don't live for others, live for yourself!"

No further comment is necessary.

Re:An interesting motto

[tftp]

I think the motto as printed is a mistranslation. Consider this variant: [...] "Don't live through others, live through yourself!"

I understand your reasons to say so, but here is the original, in German:

"Lebe nicht für andere, sondern lebe für dich!", war das Motto des gelernten Kfz-Mechanikers, der mit 17 Jahren auf einen Strommasten geklettert war und dabei beide Arme verloren hatte.

The original English translation seems to be reasonable, since für != durch. Native German speakers are welcome to correct me, if needed. My German is pretty basic.

Easily explainable

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Maybe he was trying to open windows, and crashed...

Hope he didn't hurt anyone else

[tconnors]

'Kandlbauer "accepted his fate in a manner that commanded great respect from all of us'. What? It's not fate when it was his own stupid choice to climb a high voltage pylon.

Why was he allowed to drive despite his arms being controlled by an unreliable experimental medical/machine technique? His motto was "Don't live for others, live for yourself!". Meanwhile, he was always far more likely to contribute to other peoples deaths because he was allowed to drive.

I just hope he didn't hurt or kill anyone else when he crashed.