Oregon Artificial Limb Company

I’ve been wearing a hook for a left hand for so long that the machine responsible for my predicament was actually made in the United States.
The first guy to make a hook for me was an old German fellow who shared an accent with Hermann Goering, and who’s small workshop was full of plaster molds of shattered limbs, and their recreations, in various stages of completeness.
Over the years, as with everything else, corporate holding companies have been quietly buying up the little independent prosthetics shops, and changing them to look and feel like a doctors office. You make an appointment, check in at the glass partitioned front counter, sit in a badly decorated waiting room until someone calls your name and takes you back to another room where you wait some more.
Oregon Artificial Limb Company feels friendly when you walk in the door. There is no glass partitioned counter to report to; you don’t need to take a number. The office door is open, and you just walk in. The office staff are very nice and helpful. My prosthetist of twenty-​five years comes to the front and greets me by name. We chat a bit and catch up before getting down to business.
My first time there, I was given a tour of the shop, introduced to all of the craftspersons, and shown all the ways they will customize my hook. I really like this place. I like the guys in the shop.
Building a prosthetic is a craft. Each one is custom built to not only the needs but the lifestyle of each person, and the faceless corporate conglomerate does not lend itself to the inter-​personal nature of the craft.
Oregon Artificial Limb Company never turns anyone away because they can’t pay. I like that too.