AUBURN – Making the best of a life devastated 25 years ago in Newry by a hit-and-run driver, recently got a bit easier and healthier for Jennifer Turner of Auburn.
After learning about a personal care problem the wheelchair-using quadriplegic was having, Andrew Morton of Rumford Point and Lewis Pratt of Lewiston invented a stainless-steel solution earlier this month.
Both men are machine tool technology program seniors who are graduating next month from Central Maine Community College in Auburn.
They designed a precision two-piece cutting tool, with which, someone lacking the ability and strength to grasp or hold anything with a hand, can use to cut a perfect circle in varying sizes, as needed.
“I designed it and Andrew made it,” Pratt said while standing opposite Morton on Thursday in the machine shop. “Andrew made these phenomenal pieces on the lathe. He made new cutting blades from stainless steel and threaded both pieces by hand.”
The device has a nylon Velcro strap through which a hand can be placed to then lower the tool onto material to be cut.
The weight of the tool helps to cut the hole without pressure being exerted by the person using it, Morton explained.
“The whole project was pretty gratifying on everybody’s part,” Pratt said.
At the age of 13, Turner suffered a spinal injury and kidney damage in the car accident that rendered her a quadriplegic. She also lost her bladder and, in 1991, underwent what’s called ileal conduit surgery.
The surgery means she must forever wear a bag into which a tube connected to a part of her small intestine rids her body of urine. Otherwise, Turner said she’d have to undergo constant dialysis treatments.
That’s why Turner must cut a precise circle once a week in a special silicone pad, which is then adhered to her body.
The tube passes through the hole in the pad. If the circle is precisely cut, water doesn’t seep under the pad and mar her body with painful pressure sores.
“As a quadriplegic, she cannot cut,” Pratt said. “She had this plastic, antique broken cutter that she was using and she was unable to cut a hole.”
Pratt learned about Turner’s dilemma through his wife, Aimee, who is Turner’s personal care assistant and longtime friend from when both women lived in Hanover.
Turner said she can only lightly touch with her fingers. She cannot grasp and hold anything with them.
“This works much better,” Turner said. “Before, I had to really twist with the old cutter. This is a 100-percent improvement. It has now officially healed my pressure sores that I’ve had for nine months.”
“I didn’t know we were doctors,” Pratt said to Morton and Turner. “It now occurs to me that if this is a problem for you, Jen, it’s probably a problem for a lot of others. Maybe we should go into business, Andy.”
The second part of the project includes a base plate for the tool and holder for the pad when not in use, Pratt said. It’s still in the design stage.
Lloyd Pulsifer, who heads the Machine Tool Technology Department, said the four-day project that Pratt and Morton undertook on their own time was simply amazing.
“There was a need and what they did went above and beyond anything required by the program,” Pulsifer said. “This is good stuff.”
For constantly helping others and carrying a 4.0 grade-point average, the Maine Community College System Board of Trustees recognized Pratt and six other community college students as 2009 Students of the Year on Wednesday in Augusta.
Naturally, Pratt, a former Bath Iron Works employee, downplayed it.
“We’re a machine shop,” he said. “If you need help, I’ll help you. I just do what people should do.”
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