Isabella “Bella” Tadlock was born without any fingers on her right hand and with her left arm shorter than her right. She’s had to undergo several surgeries but, thanks to a wonderful doctor, now has three working fingers and a thumb on her right hand.
Since her left arm is shorter than her right, Bella required a prosthetic arm to be able to have working fingers. But they are expensive, so the (now) 11-year-old set up an online fundraiser to help her earn enough money for a bionic arm with a special design.
Mighty Cause
Bella is a huge Star Wars fan, and wanted her bionic “Hero Arm” to look like R2D2. As her fundraiser started circulating on social media, it caught the attention of Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. He retweeted it to his millions of followers and before long, Bella had enough money to purchase her very special prosthetic.
Twitter
After receiving her (awesome) arm and getting used to it, people at the company who created it, Open Bionics, helped set up an epic surprise for Bella. Mark Hamill wanted to do more than retweet her fundraiser. He wanted to actually connect with the superfan!
So, they arranged a video chat between the two where Bella got to show Mark her new arm and all the cool things she could do with it.
YouTube
After having the chance to talk to Bella, Mark shared a video of their chat on Twitter and said, “It was wonderful talking with Bella .. This is what a real-life hero looks like!”
Twitter
On her fundraising page, Bella said she’s excited to do things with her friends that she wasn’t able to before – especially the monkey bars. There’s no doubt she’s going to do that, and so much more, now that she has her R2D2 arm.
Watch Bella and Mark’s video call below, and remember to share this sweet story with your friends!
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