MAE SOT, Thailand — The morning he was shot in January 2024, insurgent soldier Pan Pan, 31, was on his method to gather a meal pack from the executive members of his resistance group, the White Tiger Battalion.
It was 7 am, early and quiet — too early, the Burmese frontline soldier thought, to hassle placing on his helmet as he walked alongside the Asian Freeway in Kawkareik township, Myanmar.
That was when the bullet from a sniper, ricocheting off a close-by brick, tore by way of the insurgent soldier’s proper ear and got here straight out his nostril.
He doesn’t bear in mind a lot after that.
To avoid wasting him, docs eliminated a big a part of his cranium and mind on the best aspect, leaving him blind in a single eye and with a deep, tender indent in his head. He grew to become extraordinarily weak — any unintended impression might show deadly.
For the previous yr and a half, Mr Pan lived cautiously. He slept solely on his left aspect, always defending his head from hurt.
However now, a free customized 3D-printed cranium cowl, offered by non-profit group Burma Youngsters Medical Fund (BCMF), affords Mr Pan an added layer of safety.
Beneath his unassuming black cap, the duvet — mounted with Velcro — sits snugly atop his sunken cranium.
“Now, I don’t want to fret that I’d fall down once more,” he stated.
Myanmar’s battle is creating extra survivors like Mr Pan, who’re wounded and in want of long-term, specialised medical assist.
Rising casualties
Widespread resistance unfold throughout the nation after the navy forcefully seized energy in 2021, with civilians taking over arms to withstand the regime’s brutal marketing campaign. The navy retaliated with airstrikes and mass arrests, silencing opposing voices with lethal drive.
At the least 6,000 civilians have been killed by Myanmar’s navy up to now 4 years, based on the Help Affiliation for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based rights group based by Burmese former political prisoners dwelling in exile.
In 2023, the nation recorded the world’s highest variety of new annual casualties, with greater than 1,000 deaths brought on by antipersonnel landmines and explosive remnants of struggle, the Landmine Monitor Report 2024 discovered.
Survivors face devastating long-term penalties: burns, amputation, and different life-altering accidents. The necessity for specialised care and prosthetics has soared.
Printing out hope in plastic
To assist fulfill this rising want for prostheses, BCMF is popping to unlikely options: plastic filaments and 3D printers.
Based in 2006 to assist youngsters alongside the Thai-Myanmar border entry complicated surgical procedures, BCMF later expanded its companies to assist different weak teams.
In 2019, founder Kanchana Thornton met a boy with a delivery defect that disallowed him to stroll on his personal. He was too younger to bear the limb amputation wanted to suit prosthetics.
Decided to assist, analysis led Mrs Thornton to a documentary a couple of man who 3D prints prosthetic limbs in his storage.
Impressed, she contacted him, and he assured her 3D printing was straightforward — requiring only a printer and free software program to start out.
With $10,000 AUD ($8,491 SGD) in seed funding from a donor, BCMF began its 3D printing lab with two printers.
It now has six machines and has produced free 3D-printed prostheses for 150 sufferers, a few of whom have acquired a number of medical gadgets.
In 2025, lead technician and former scientific nurse Aung Tin Tun helped produce 40 distinctive assistive gadgets for sufferers.
These vary from “easy” designs, which may be produced in 4 to 6 hours, like beauty hand prostheses, to purposeful limbs, which might comprise over 100 components and take a full day to print.
Most just lately, Mr Tun produced an above-elbow arm prosthesis fitted with springs and silicone grip pads so affected person Thar Ki, 28 can clutch the handlebar of his bike.
Three years in the past, the previous insurgent soldier was testing handbombs when a grenade went off unexpectedly in his proper hand.
“After the accident, I felt like I couldn’t do something anymore,” Mr Ki stated.
Now, together with his 3D-printed arm, he can trip his bike once more.
At a typical hospital, Mr Ki would have needed to fork out upwards of 40,000 baht ($1,605 SGD) for the prosthesis he acquired — a hefty value for migrants like him who’re often unemployed or paid beneath Thailand’s official minimal wage of 352 baht ($14.13 SGD).
Whereas the manufacturing value of 3D printing a typical prosthetic arm averages round $100 USD ($129.36 SGD), BCMF covers the associated fee absolutely for migrants.
Mrs Thornton stated that BCMF spends some $30,000 USD ($38,800 SGD) to maintain the 3D printing lab operational yearly.
High quality for free of charge to sufferers
Regardless of being free, the prostheses bear rigorous testing earlier than being handed to sufferers.
Utilizing open-source designs discovered on-line, Mr Tun’s group “remixes” and customizes every half to a affected person’s scanned measurements on a 3D printing software program.
Strings and is derived are then examined for pressure, to tailor the grip to pure hand motion.
“If the design will not be good, we gained’t give it to the recipients,” stated Mr Tun.
Whereas a man-made limb may be printed inside 24 hours, the method will not be all the time clean. Often, printer nozzles jam, sudden energy cuts halt manufacturing, and prototypes fail. Every error means wasted time, supplies, and cash.
Nonetheless, he says it’s value it.
“For me, it’s only a very small quantity of contribution. However for the sufferers, it’s very impactful of their day by day lives,” he stated.
Studying on the job
As a result of area of interest nature of the work, a lot of the group at BCMF lack formal experience in biomedical engineering or 3D printing.
Mr Tun, as an example, had simply three weeks of hands-on expertise in a Thai hospital to find out about 3D printing. Conventional prosthetists sometimes prepare for years.
“Generally we’ll have an thought for a selected design however we can’t absolutely utilise the software program,” he stated. “I’m nonetheless studying day by day.”
To bridge this hole, BCMF brings in exterior consultants and scholar interns from Canada’s Queen’s College, who help with software program and manufacturing.
The burden plastic limbs can’t bear
Dr Trevor Binedell, principal prosthetist at Singapore’s Tan Tock Seng Hospital, stated that regardless of its promise, 3D-printed gadgets are typically much less strong and adjustable than conventional choices.
Supplies used, like thermoplastic polyurethane — generally used within the manufacturing of shoe soles and hoses — will not be sturdy sufficient to bear human weight, leaving BCMF at present unable to make prosthetic legs.
Sufferers with decrease limb amputations have to seek out their footing at a conventional prosthetic manufacturing unit within the well-known Mae Tao Clinic (MTC) as an alternative.
Positioned only a brief stroll aside inside MTC’s compound, the 2 departments incessantly collaborate to raised serve sufferers. Often, BCMF will 3D print prosthetic components on the different’s request.
The standard cast-and-mould strategies take technicians as much as 5 days to make a leg, however the casting course of gives sufferers with higher match and management, Dr Binedell stated.
“Whereas (3D printing) expertise is promising, it nonetheless wants time to mature earlier than it could constantly meet the calls for of lower-limb purposes,” he added.
Room for enchancment
Though free prostheses have helped sufferers turn out to be extra assured in day by day life, consolation and weight stay a problem.
Mr Pan jokes that if he wears his cranium cowl for too lengthy, he may begin leaning to at least one aspect.
As for Mr Ki, he solely makes use of his prosthetic arm when using his bike as he feels it’s too heavy for day by day put on — he estimates it weighs a couple of kilogram.
“I can’t actually complain as a result of it’s free and I respect the assistance,” he stated. “But when they make a lighter one, I’d use it extra typically.”
3D printing expertise might not be excellent — however for survivors in Mae Sot like Mr Ki and Mr Pan, it makes all of the distinction. – Rappler.com
