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Nantucket man born with no arms closer to getting prosthetics

NANTUCKET, Mass. — Higor Souza has spent his entire life beating the odds.

“Things have always been a challenge for me. I need to prove myself more than everyone else,” he said.

Souza, who is 20 years old, was born with no arms and with legs that have no femurs. He uses his feet to do almost everything. His family recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise enough money to buy two prosthetic arms for Higor.

Each prosthetic arm costs around $175,000.

“I think it’s a big thing for me. I can’t even describe how much appreciated that is and would change my life completely, and sorry I don’t know how to live with arms, so it would really be amazing,” he said.

Souza has overcome other obstacles too. He was born in Brazil and moved to Nantucket with his mother four years ago to live with his grandmother, who has lived on the island for years.

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When he arrived on Nantucket, Higor didn’t know any English. He said he worked hard to learn the language and graduated from Nantucket High School in 2020.

“He was always studying at home. He’d watch videos, so he would come to school and we would talk about different things, and he would ask me about historical documentaries he was watching, just different things he gets excited about,” said Devin Durand, a teacher at Nantucket High School.

Higor was recently fitted for a prosthetic arm. He said it will make his life much easier to perform simple functions that’s he’s never been able to do before.

“I will be seen differently because, when I go out, people always look at me and say, ‘that’s strange.’ I’ll be more normalized, let’s say,” he said.

The one thing Higor said he can’t wait to do once he gets his prosthetic arms is to hug his one-year-old sister, which he has never been able to do. Higor plans to go to college and study electrical engineering.

If you would like to contribute to the GoFundMe campaign, click here.