A former jockey who was left paralyzed from the waist down after a horse riding accident was able to walk again thanks to a cutting-edge piece of robotic tech: a $100,000 ReWalk Personal exoskeleton.

When one of its small parts malfunctioned, however, the entire device stopped working. Desperate to gain his mobility back, he reached out to the manufacturer, Lifeward, for repairs. But it turned him away, claiming his exoskeleton was too old, *404 media *reports.

“After 371,091 steps my exoskeleton is being retired after 10 years of unbelievable physical therapy,” Michael Straight posted on Facebook earlier this month. “The reasons why it has stopped is a pathetic excuse for a bad company to try and make more money.”

  • aesthelete@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    1 month ago

    why wouldn’t companies have a failsafe for their equipment being used against them

    Because they got tired of paying for the whiny engineers that would have to implement the failsafe and so they fired them all.

    • III@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 month ago

      so they fired them all

      Even fictional evil companies need to meet goals set by the board.