Prosthetic feet and their rubber covers sit in a windowsill at Mid-Mo Orthotics and Prosthetics

Several months ago I was on assignment at the Missourian, and as was often the case, there were no actual assignments. The photo editor told me to go “feature hunt,” which is basically an excuse to go explore the town and find something interesting to photograph.

One of the things I love most about being a journalist is that its a sort of license to be nosy. With a camera or a notepad, you suddenly have a valid reason for sticking your head in a doorway and saying, “I’d like to know what happens here.”

Last fall, at the 64th Missouri Photo Workshop in Troy, Mo., my friend Gary Rhodes told the story of a wonderful young woman living with a prosthetic leg. I actually have a print from Gary’s story hanging on the wall of my office right now. The journey of two of my favorite photojournalists, Emilio Morenatti and Joao Silva, who both lost limbs while covering the wars in the Middle East, has been well-documented. But, I was curious about who makes these bionic legs and arms, and why.

So, one dreary day in March, I stuck my head inside Mid-Missouri Orthotics & Prosthetics here in Columbia. I met Tracy Ell, a man who has been crafting prosthetics for about 20 years. I told him I wanted to learn about the “other” side of the prosthetic world, and he invited me into his workshop for a little while. I got to see them work on artificial arms and legs and hands through every stage of the process- from the initial casting of a mold of a “residual limb” to wrapping the carbon fiber around the final, fitted socket to programming the latest bionic knee via Bluetooth. For Tracy, his career allows him to balace his love of art with his fascination with science.

I learned a lot about how far we humans have come in terms of technology in the past 500 years. Tracy showed me a replica of a hand made for a German knight in 1480, seen below. There are examples of people making fake arms and legs as far as 300 BCE. And now, we can strap computerized hands onto a woman’s arm, and within two weeks she can master the device to the point of pouring a pot of coffee with it (this is a big, big deal, Tracy tells me, because of all the small motor skills involved).

I had a lot of fun, met some interesting people, and hopefully, made some decent photos. At the end of the day, I had hoped to learn more about why someone who choose to enter this field. Tracy shared this with me during our final interview: Working with children abd helping them reach “normal” milestones gives him the most pleasure.

“Like this 6-year-old girl who was missing both legs below the knee,” he said. “When her mom calls and says she rode a bike for the first time and feels like a normal kid … that’s a good day at work.”

Tracy Ell tests the grip strength of a prosthetic arm brought in by a patient for adjustment.

Tracy Ell, left, checks the knee joint on Drew Dotzler’s prosthetic leg that Todd Lee(CQ), right, is fitting.

A workbench in the Mid-Missouri Orthotics & Prosthetics workshop holds tools and prostheses at varying degrees of completion.

Todd Lee, right, checks Drew Dotzler’s face for a reaction as he fits a prosthetic leg May 9, 2013. Dotzler had his left leg removed below the knee when he was a child, and is helping to create his own prosthetic leg before leaving Columbia to study prosthetics in Chicago.

The rubber cover to a prosthetic hand sits on a workbench next to the bioelectric sensors that convert muscle contractions into electric signals that activate the motors and actuators in the hand.

David Bright, left, and Todd Lee stretch a sheet of thick, heated plastic onto a plaster mold of a patient’s residual limb. The above-the-knee socket is initially molded from clear plastic so technicians can see how it fits a patient, before the final form is created from carbon fiber.

A replica of a 15th-century prosthetic hand crafted from steel sits next to a 21st-century polymer hand fitted with delicate microprocessors.

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